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THE  GIFT  OF 
MAY  TREAT  MORRISON 

IN  MEMORY  OF 

ALEXANDER  F  MORRISON 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2008  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/baconvsshakspereOOreed 


DELIA  BACON. 


Front  It  Dtig7ierrfotype  taken  in  May.  iSs3- 


Noteworthy  Opinions,  Pro  and  Con. 

BACON  vs.  SHAKSPERE 

Compiled  and  Edited 

BY 

EDWIN  REED,  A.  M. 


Author  of  Bacon  vs.  Shakspkre,  Brief  for  Plaintiff: 
Francis  Bacon,  Our  Shake-speark,  Etc. 


BOSTON: 

coburn  publishixg  co., 

27  Beach  St. 

1905. 


7  '\ 


PREFACE. 


The  authorship  of  Shakespeare  has  now  been  a  subject 
of  discussion  in  literary  circles  throughout  the  civilized 
world  for  more  than  fifty  years.  The  problem  is  still 
practically  unsolved.  Men  distinguished  in  almost  every 
walk  of  life  are  on  cither  side,  though  professional 
Shakspearean  scholars  remain,  as  a  rule,  loyal  to  the 
traditional  bard. 

May  we  not  hope  that  lovers  of  truth,  for  truth's  sake 
at  least,  will  yet,  in  greater  numbers  even  than  heretofore, 
participate  in  this  fascinating  research  ?  The  eye  of  the 
mind  is  like  that  of  the  body  ;  with  a  dou]>t  in  the  one  or 

I    a  mote  in  the  other,  there  is  no  peace. 

;  Furthermore,  the  effect  of  such  debates  as  this  among 

citizens    of   different    nationalities,    compared    with    the 

'  barbarisms  of  war  and  the  equally  barbarous  preparations 
for  war,  now  universal,  cannot  fail  in  some  measure  to 
unify  and  fraternize  mankind. 

EDWIN  REED. 


4319G6 


T'rutJi  is  like  a  torch  :  the  more  it^  shook,  the  more  it  shines. 


DELIA  BACON. 


CowcoED,  Mass.,  18  February,  1858. 
Dr.  Leonard  Bacon  : 

I  could  heartily  wish  that  I  had  very  different  news  to 
send  y©u  ©f  a  person  who  has  high  claims  on  me  and  on  all 
of  us  who  love  genius  and  elevation  of  character.  These 
qualities  have  89  shone  in  Miss  Bacon  that,  whilst  their 
present  eclipse  is  the  greater  calamity,  it  seems  as  if  the  care 
of  her  in  these  distressing  circumstances  [her  last  illness] 
ought  to  be,  not  at  private,  but  at  the  public  charge  of  schol- 
ars and  friends  of  learning  and  truth. 

R.  W.  Emerson. 


UM'^V.    OF 

Caufornia 


BACON  vs.  SHAKSPERE. 


NOTEWORTHY  OPINIONS  ON  THE  SUBJECT  OF 
THE  CONTROVERSY 

A.  W.  Von  Schlegbl. 
«  •*">  ENERALLY  speaking,  I  consider  all  that  has  been 
I       — .     said  about  him  [Shakspere]  personally  to  be  a  mere 
V,«^     fable,  a  blind  extravagant  error."  ^ — (1808). 

Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge. 

"  What !  are  we  to  have  miracles  in  sport  ?  Does  God 
choose  idiots  by  whom  to  convey  divine  truths  to  man  ?  "  ^  — 
(1811). 

Lord  Byron. 

"Shakespeare  had  many  advantages  ;  he  was  an  actor  by 
profession  and  knew  all  the  tricks  of  the  trade.  Yet  he  had 
little  fame  in  his  day ;  see  what  Jonson  and  his  contem- 
poraries said  of  him.  Besides,  how  few  of  what  we  call 
Shakespeare's  plays  are  exclusively  so!  And  how  at  this 
distance  of  time,  and  lost,  as  so  many  works  of  that  period 
are,  can  we  separate  what  really  is,  from  what  is  not,  hiis 
own?"3  — (1821). 

Benjamin  Disraeli. 
"  '  And  who  is  Shakspeare '  said  Cadurcis.  <  We  know  of 
him  as  much  as  we  do  of  Homer.  Did  he  write  half  the  plays 
attributed  to  him  ?  Did  he  ever  write  a  single  whole  play  ? 
I  doubt  it.  He  appears  to  me  to  have  been  an  inspired 
adapter  for  the  theatres,  which  were  not  then  as  good  as 

^  Schlegel's  '  Dramatic  Art  and  Literature,'  p.  302. 

^  'Notes  on  Shakespeare,'  i.  66. 

'  Medwin's  '  Conversations  with  Lord  Byron.' 


2  OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON 

barns.  I  take  him  to  have  been  a  botcher  up  of  old  plays. 
His  popularity  is  of  modern  date ;  and  it  may  not  last ;  it 
would  have  surprised  him  marvellously.'  "^ —  (1837). 

Henry  Hallam. 
"  The  two  greatest  names  in  poetry  are  to  us  little  more 
than  names.  If  we  are  not  yet  come  to  question  his  [Shakes- 
peare's] unity,  as  we  do  that  of  *  the  blind  old  man  of  Scio's 
rocky  isle,'  an  improvement  in  critical  acuteness  doubtless 
reserved  for  a  distant  posterity,  we  as  little  feel  the  power  of 
identifying  the  young  man  who  came  up  from  Stratford,  was 
afterwards  an  indifferent  player  in  a  London  theatre,  and 
returned  to  his  native  place  in  middle  life,  with  the  author 
of  '  Macbeth '  and  '  Lear,'  as  we  can  give  a  distinct  historic 
personality  to  Homer.  All  that  insatiable  curiosity  and  un- 
wearied diligence  have  hitherto  detected  about  Shakspere 
serves  rather  to  disappoint  and  perplex  us,  than  to  furnish 
the  slightest  illustration  of  his  character.  It  is  not  the  regis- 
ter of  his  baptism,  or  the  draft  of  his  will,  or  the  orthog- 
raphy of  his  name  that  we  seek.  No  letter  of  his  hand- 
writing, no  record  of  his  conversation,  no  character  of  him 
drawn  with  any  fulness  by  a  contemporary  has  been  pro- 
duced."»_  (1837). 

In  a  subsequent  edition  of  his  work  Mr.  Hallam  com- 
meoted  on  the  above  in  a  foot-note  as  follows : 

"  I  am  not  much  inclined  to  qualify  this  paragraph  in  con- 
sequence of  the  petty  circumstances  which  have  been  lately 
brought  to  light,  and  which  rather  confirm  than  otherwise 
wkat  I  have  said.  But  I  laud  the  labours  of  Mr.  Collier,  Mr. 
Hunter  and  other  collectors  of  such  crumbs ;  though  I  am  not 

*  '  Venetia.'  Mr.  Disraeli  subsequently  became  Earl  of  Beacons- 
field  and  Prime  Minister  of  England. 

^  nallam's  '  Literature  of  Europe.'  Mr.  Hallam  was  probably  the 
ablest  literary  critic  England  ever  produced.  To  the  close  of  his 
life  he  still  asserted  that  he  was  in  search  of  the  author  of  the 
Plays. 


OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON.  3 

sure  that  we  should  not  venerate  Shakspeare  as  much  if  they 
had  left  him  undisturbed  in  his  obscurity.  To  be  told  that 
he  played  a  trick  to  a  brother  player  in  a  licentious  amour, 
or  that  he  died  of  a  drunken  frolic,  as  a  stupid  vicar  of  Strat- 
ford recounts  (long  after  the  time)  in  his  diary,  does  not 
exactly  inform  us  of  the  man  who  wrote  Lear.  If  there  was 
a  Shakspeare  of  earth,  as  I  suspect,  there  was  also  one  of 
heaven  ;  and  it  is  of  him  that  we  desire  to  know  something." 
<1854.) 

Ralph  Waldo  Emersok. 
"I  remember  noticing  that  the  Malones  and  Steevenses  and 
critical  gentry  were  about  evenly  divided  [on  the  authorship 
of  a  song  in  'Measure  for  Measure'],  these  for  Shakespeare 
and  those  for  Beaumont  and  Fletcher.  But  the  internal 
evidence  is  all  for  one,  none  for  the  others.  If  he  did  not 
write  it,  they  did  not,  and  we  shall  have  some  fourth  unknown 
singer."^  — (1838). 

"  Shakespeare  is  a  voice  merely :  who  and  what  he  was 
that  sang,  that  sings,  we  know  not."  ^  —  Idem.   (1842). 

"  I  cannot  marry  this  fact  to  his  verse.  An  obscure  and 
profane  life."  ^  —  Idem. 

August  Friedrich  Gfrorer. 
"Karl  Miiller-Mylius  reports  that  as  early  as  1843  Pro- 
fessor Gforrer,  then  librarian  at  Stuttgart,  privately  expressed 
the  opinion  that  it  was  impossible  that  the  historical  Shak- 
spere  should  have  composed  the  Shakespeare  dramas." — Lec- 
tures on  Shakespeare,  p.  y. 

Joseph  C  Hart. 
"  He  was  not  the  mate  of  the  literary  characters  of  his  day, 

^  Holmes's  'Life  of  Emerson,'  p.  128. 

'Conway's  'Emerson  at  Home  and  Abroad,'  p.  101. 

2  '  Representative  Men.'  Mr.  Emerson  was  a  sympathetic  adviser 
of  Miss.  Bacon  in  her  efforts  to  discover  an  adequate  authorship  for 
the  Plays.  It  was  through  him  that  she  secured  the  first  publica- 
tion of  her  views  in  Putnam's  Monthly,  January,  1856.  He  declared 
that  she  had  opened  a  discussion  that  would  never  be  closed.  Toward 
the  close  of  his  life,  however,  he  prouounced  her  composite  theory, 
viz.,  thatEaleigh,  Bacon  and  others  wiote  the  plays,  "fantastic." 


4  OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON. 

and  none  knew  it  better  than  himself.  It  is  a  fraud  upon  the 
world  to  thrust  hia  surreptitious  fame  upon  us.  The  inquiry 
will  be,  who  were  the  able  literary  men  who  wrote  the  dramas 
imputed  to  him ?"»  — (1848). 

Gboro  Gottfried  Gervinus. 
"  Scarcely  anything  can  be  said  of  Shakespeare's  position 
generally  with  regard  to  mediaeval  poetry  which  does  not 
also  bear  upon  the  position  of  the  renovator,  Bacon,  with 
regard  to  mediseval  philosophy.  Neither  knew  nor  men- 
tioned the  other,  although  Bacon  was  almost  called  upon  to 
have  done  so  in  his  remarks  upon  the  theatre  of  his  day. 
....  Shakespeare  despised  the  million,  and  Bacon  feared 
with  Phocion  the  applause  of  the  multitude.  Both  are  alike 
in  the  rare  impartiality  with  which  they  avoided  everything 
one-sided.  Both  have  an  equal  hatred  of  sects  and  parties? 
Bacon,  of  sophists  and  dogmatic  philosophers ;  Shakespeare, 
of  Puritans  and  Zealots.  Both,  therefore,  are  equally  free 
from  prejudices,  and  from  astrological  superstition  in  dreams 
and  omens.  Just  as  Bacon  banished  religion  from  science, 
so  did  Shakespeare  from  Art;  and  when  the  former  com- 
plained that  the  teachers  of  religion  were  against  natural 
philosophy,  they  were  equally  against  the  stage.  From 
Bacon's  example  it  seems  clear  that  Shakespeare  left  relig- 
ious matters  unnoticed  on  the  same  ground  as  himself,  and 
took  the  path  of  morality  in  worldly  things;  in  both  this  has 
been  equally  misconstrued,  and  Le  Maistre  has  proved 
Bacon's  lack  of  Christianity,  as  Birch  has  done  that  of 
Shakespeare.  ...  In  both  a  similar  combination  of  different 
mental  powers  was  at  work,  and  as  Shakespeare  was  often 
involuntarily  philosophical  in  his  profoundness,  Bacon  was 
not  seldom  surprised  into  the  imagination  of  the  poet.  .  .  . 
In  Bacon's  works  we  find  a  multitude  of  moral  sayings  and 
maxims  of  experience  from  which  the  most  striking  mottoes 
might  be  drawn  for  every  Shakespearean  play,  aye,  for  every 
one  of  his  principle  characters,  testifying  to  a  remarkable 

^  Hart's  Romance  of  Yaclitiufj. 


OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON.  5 

harmony  in  their  mutual  comprehension  of  human  nature. 
In  these  maxims  lie  at  once,  as  it  were,  the  whole  theory  of 
Shakespeare's  dramatic  forms  and  of  his  moral  philosophy." ' 

—  (1850). 

Chambers's  Edinburgh  Journal. 

"What  was  to  hinder  William  Shakspere  from  reading, 
appreciating,  and  purchasing  these  dramas,  and  thereafter 
keeping  a  poet^  as  Mrs,  Packwood  did  ?  This  is  at  least  as 
plausible  as  most  of  what  is  contained  in  the  many  bulky 
volumes  written  to  connect  the  man  William  Shakspere  with 
the  poet  of  '  Hamlet.' 

"  We  repeat,  that  there  is  nothing  recorded  in  his  every- 
day life  that  connects  the  two,  except  the  simple  fact  of  his 
selling  poems  and  realizing  the  proceeds,  and  their  being 
afterwards  published  with  his  name  attached ;  and  the  state- 
ments of  Ben  Jonson,  which  however  are  quite  compatible 
with  his  being  in  the  secret."  ^ — ( 1852). 

Delia  Bacon. 
"  My  visit  to  Mr.  Carlyle  was  very  rich ;  I  wish  you  could 
have  heard  him  laugh.     Once  or  twice  I  thought  he  would 
have  taken  the  roof  off.  And  first,  they  were  perfectly  stunned 

—  he  and  the  gentleman  [James  Spedding]  he  had  invited  to 
meet  me.  They  turned  black  in  the  face  at  my  presumption. 
*  Do  you  mean  to  say '  so  and  so  ?  inquired  Mr.  Carlyle,  with 
strong  emphasis ;  and  when  I  said  that  I  did,  they  looked  at 
me  with  staring  eyes,  speechless  for  want  of  words  in  which 
to  convey  their  sense  of  my  audacity.  At  length,  Blr.  Carlyle 
came  down  upon  me  with  such  a  volley;  I  did  not  mind  it 
in  the  least.     I  told  him  he  did  not  know  what  was  in  the 


'  We  quote  the  above  from  a  remarkable  work,  entitled  '  A  Study 
of  Shakespeare,'  published  in  Germany  in  four  volumes  in  1850. 
It  was  at  that  time  not  only  the  high-water  mark  of  Shakespearean 
criticism  in  the  world,  but  also  the  actual  forerunner  of  the  new 
era  in  it,  that  dawned  upon  mankind  in  Miss  Bacon's  publication 
seven  years  later.  Gervinus  must  be  ranked  with  Lessing  in  honors 
conferred  upon  German  scholarship. 

^  The  author  of  the  article  is  said  to  have  been  Mr.  Jameson. 


6  OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON 

plays,  if  he  said  that ;  and  no  one  can  who  believes  that  that 
booby  wrote  them.  It  was  then  that  he  began  to  shriek. 
You  could  have  heard  him  a  mile.  I  told  him,  too,  that  I 
should  not  think  of  questioning  his  authority  in  such  a  case  if 
it  were  not  with  me  a  matter  of  knowledge.  1  did  not  advance 
it  as  an  opinion.  They  began  to  be  moved  with  my  coolness 
at  length,  and  before  the  meeting  was  over  they  agreed  to 
hold  themselves  in  a  state  of  readiness  to  receive  what  I  had 
to  say  on  the  subject.'"  —  (1853). 

David  Masson. 
"  Shakespeare  is  as  astonishing  for  the  exuberance  of  his 
genius  in  abstract  notions,  and  for  the  depth  of  his  analytic 
and  philosophic  insight,  as  for  the  scope  and  minuteness  of 
his  poetic  imagination.  It  is  as  if  into  a  mind  poetical  in 
form  there  had  been  poured  all  the  matter  that  existed  in  the 
mind  of  his  contemporary,  Bacon.  In  Shakespeare's  plays, 
we  have  thought,  history,  exposition,  philosophy,  all  within 
the  round  of  the  poet.  The  only  difference  between  him  and 
Bacon  sometimes  is,  that  Bacon  writes  an  essay  and  calls  it 
his  own,  while  Shakespeare  writes  a  similar  essay  and  puts  it 
in  the  mouth  of  a  Ulysses  or  a  Polonius." — (1853). 

Nathaniel  Hawthorne. 
"What  I  claim  for  this  [Delia  Bacon's]  work  is  that  the 
ability  employed  in  its  composition  has  been  worthy  of  its 
great  subject,  and  well  employed  for  our  intellectual  interests, 
whatever  judgment  the  public  may  pass  upon  the  questions 
discussed.  And  after  listening  to  the  author's  interpretation 
of  the  plays,  and  seeing  how  wide  a  scope  she  assigns  to  them, 
how  high  a  purpose  and  what  richness  of  inner  meaning,  the 
thoughtful  reader  will  hardly  return  again — not  wholly,  at  all 
events — to  the  common  view  of  them  and  of  their  author.  It 
is  for  the  public  to  say  whether  my  country-woman  has  proved 
her  theory.     In  the  worst  event,  if  she  has  failed,  her  failure 

^  In  letter  tohersister,  published  in  Theodore  Bacon's  'Biograph- 
ical Sketch  of  Delia  Bacon,'  2^.  62. 


OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON.  7 

will  be  more  honorable  than  most  peoples'  triumphs ;  since  it 
must  fling  upon  the  old  tombstone  at  Stratford-on-Avon  the 
noblest  tributary  wreath  that  has  ever  lain  there."  ^ — (1857). 

William  Henry  Smith. 
"  Thus  we  see  that  Bacon  and  Shakspere  both  flourished  at 
the  same  time,  and  might,  either  of  them,  have  written  these 
works,  as  far  as  dates  are  concerned,  and  that  Bacon  not  only 
had  the  requisite  learning  and  experience,  but  also  that  his 
wit  and  poetic  faculty  were  exactly  of  that  peculiar  kind 
which  we  find  exhibited  in  these  plays."*  —  (1857). 

Sophia  (Peabody)  Hawthorne.^ 

"  I  believe  Lord  Bacon  and  Shakespeare  to  be  one  and  the 

same  person,  or  rather  I  believe  that  Lord  Bacon  wrote  what 

are  called  Shakespeare's  plays  and  sonnets  .  .  .  He  shared 

with  the  divine  Plato  the  highest  human  intellect." —  (1857). 

Lord  Palmerston. 
"Augustus  Craven,  having  mentioned  giving  to  Palmerston 
a  book  or  pamphlet  trying  to  disprove  that  Shakspere  wrote 

^  Preface  to  Delia  Bacon's  'The  Philosophy  of  the  Plays  of  Shake- 
speare Unfolded.'  Mr.  Hawthorne's  remarks  ought  to  have  fur- 
nished the  key-note  to  the  discussion  that  has  followed. 

2 Smith's  'Bacon  and  Shakespeare.'  In  a  letter  to  Nathaniel 
Hawthorne,  written  June  2,  1867,  Mr.  Smith  said:  "For  upwards 
of  twenty  years  I  have  held  the  opinion  that  Bacon  was  the  author 
of  the  Shakespeare  Plays."  In  public  announcement  of  this  theory, 
however,  he  was  anticipated  by  Miss  Delia  Bacon. 

^  Mrs.  Nathaniel  Hawthorne,  a  lady  of  fine  intellectual  powers 
and  high  culture.  She  read  some  of  the  chapters  of  Miss  Delia 
Bacon's  book  before  they  were  printed,  and  expressed  her  opinion 
of  them  in  these  words: 

"My  Dear  Miss  Bacon: — Mr.  Hawthorne  wishes  me  to  tell  you 
that  your  manuscript  arrived  safely  on  Saturday  evening.  He  has 
not  read  it  yet,  for  the  very  good  reason  that  he  could  not,  as  I  have 
had  possession  of  it  ever  since  it  came,  and  only  finished  it  last 
evening.  My  dear  Miss  Bacon,  I  feel  so  ignorant  in  the  presence  of 
your  extraordinary  learning,  that  it  seems  absurd  in  me  even  to 
say  what  I  think  of  your  manuscripts,  and  yet  I  cannot  help  it;  for 
I  never  read  so  profound  and  wonderful  a  criticism,  and  I  think 
there  never  was  such  a  philosophic  insight  and  appreciation  since 
Lord  Bacon  himself.  No  subject  has  so  great  a  fascination  for  me, 
as  '  divine  philosophy,'  this  searching  into  the  nature  of  things, 
and  extracting  their  essence,  and  discovering  the  central  order,  the 
Law  that  perpetually  is  striving  to  bring  Harmony,  and  which 


8  OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON. 

the  plays  which  go  by  his  name,  Houghton  added :  '  Pal- 
merston  used  to  say  he  rejoiced  to  have  lived  to  see  three 
things, —  the  reintegration  of  Italy,  the  unveiling  of  the 
mystery  of  China  and  Japan,  and  the  explosion  of  the  Shakes- 
pearian illusions.'  "  ^  (^.  1860.) 

Nathaniel  Holmes. 

"It  should   be   understood  to  what  manner  of   man  this 
authorship  belongs ;  for  it  is  not  only 

—  '  a  fault  to  heaven, 
A  fault  against  the  dead,  a  fault  to  nature, 
To  reason  most  absurd  '  — 

but  also  a  positive  injury  done  to  learning  and  philosophy, 
and  to  every  individual  scholar  and  man,  who  shall  be  taught 
to  believe  the  enormous  impossibility  that  such  works  could 
be,  and  were,  written  by  mere  genius  without  learning,  or 
by  some  more  fantastically  superhuman  inspiration.  Does  not 
any  man  feel  an  unutterable  indignation  when  he  discovers 
(after  long  years  of  thought  and  study  perhaps)  that  he  has 
been  all  the  while  misled  by  false  instruction,  and  that  con- 
sequently the  primest  sources  of  truth  have  been  left  lumber- 
ing his  shelves  in  neglect  .  .  .  [while  he  has]  been  put  off 
and  befooled  with  paltry  child's  fables  ?  By  the  help  of  the 


never  can  be  broken  —  I  mean,  without  a  darkening  of  the  universe. 
I  am  not  one  of  those  who  have 

'  a  credence  in  my  heart, 
An  esperance  so  obstinately  strong, 
As  doth  outdo  the  attest  of  eyes  and  ears.'  " 

Tboilus  and  Cuessida,  (v.  2,  121). 
We  think  that  this  judgment  of  the  character  of  Miss  Bacon's 
writings  was  prophetic.  Unfortunately,  and  to  the  disgrace  of 
modern  scholarship,  it  is  prophecy  still.  The  time  is  coming  when 
Miss  Bacon  will  be  considered  as  the  ablest  and  most  courageous 
woman,  the  true  heroine,  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

^  From  the  Diary  of  Et.  Hon.  Sir  Mountstuart  E.  Grant. 

Lord  Houghton  (Richard  Monckton  Milnes),  referring  to  the  above 
when  on  a  visit  to  this  country  a  few  years  ago,  assured  Dr.  Apple- 
tou  Morgan,  president  of  the  New  York  Shakespeare  Society,  that 
he  no  longer  considered  Shakspere,  the  actor,  as  the  author  of  the 
plays  of  Shakespeare. 


OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON.  9 

Eternal  Power  and  such  abilities  as  we  possess,  let  the  truth 
and   the   proof   of   it  come  forth."  ^ — (1866). 

William  H.  Furness. 

"  I  am  one  of  the  many  who  have  never  been  able  to  bring 
the  life  of  William  Shakspere  and  the  plays  of  Shakespeare 
within  a  planetary  space  of  each  other.  Are  there  any  two 
things  in  the  world  more  incongruous  ?  Had  the  plays  come 
down  to  us  anonymously,  had  the  labor  of  discovering  the 
author  been  imposed  upon  after  generations,  I  think  we  could 
have  found  no  one  of  that  day  but  F.  Bacon  to  whom  to 
assign  the  crown.  In  this  case  it  would  have  been  resting 
now  on  his  head  by  almost  common  consent. 

"  The  popular  reluctance  to  entertain  Miss  Delia  Bacon's 
opinion  and  yours  appears  to  have  no  better  cause  than  the 
fear  of  losing  a  great  miracle  of  genius.  But  the  miracle  is 
far  grander,  besides  being  a  rational  miracle,  when  we  make 
Shakespeare  and  Bacon  one."^ — (1866). 

Thomas  Pjrkwen. 

"If   you  by  accident  have  not  seen  a  small  two-shilling 

volume  by  W.  H.  Smith,  entitled  '  Bacon  and  Shakespeare,' 

you  should  get  it.     I  confess  myself  an  entire  convert  to  his 

opinion,  that  Bacon  and  not  Shakspere  wrote  those  wonder- 

^  Preface  to  Holmes's  Authorship  of  Shakespeare.' 
The  author  of  this  work,  the  profoundest  yet  written  on  the  sub- 
ject, is  still  living  (1899;,  at  the  age  of  eighty-five,  in  retirement  in 
Cambridge,  Mass.  He  has  been  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Judicial 
Court  of  the  State  of  Missouri,  a  law  professor  at  Harvard  Uni- 
versity, and  a  deep  thinker  in  some  of  the  most  abstruse  problems 
of  modern  thought. 

2  Letter  to  Hon.  Nathaniel  Holmes,  printed  in  Holmes's  'Author- 
ship of  Shakespeare,'  p.  628. 

Mr.  Furness,  one  of  the  most  able  scholars  of  his  day,  was  father 
of  H.  H.  Furness  of  Philadelphia,  editor  of  the  New  Variorum 
Shakespeare,  now  in  process  of  publication.  It  is  a  remarkable 
fact  that  the  son  at  the  inception  of  his  great  enterprise  had  never 
given  any  "  prolonged  thought "  (as  he  has  confessed)  to  the  subject 
of  the  authorship,  notwithstanding  his  fatlier's  well-known  convic- 
tions in  regard  to  it.  We  shall  consider  it  a  just  penalty  if  the  new 
Variorum  becomes,  as  it  is  likely  to  become,  a  magnificent  monu- 
ment to  a  dead  superstition. 


lo  OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON 

ful  plays.  I  was  delighted  to  see  that  Lord  Palmerston  was 
equally  a  convert  to  that  opinion.  I  have  held  it  for  years."* 
(1867). 

Edwin  P.  Whipple. 
"To  this  individuality  we  tack   on   a   universal   genius, 
which  is  about  as  reasonable  as  it  would  be  to  take  the  con- 
trolling power  of  gravity  from  the  sun  and  attach  it  to  one 
of  the  asteroids." 2  _  (1869). 

John  Henbt  Cabdinal  Newman. 
"  What  do  we  know  of  Shakespeare  ?  Is  he  much  more 
than  a  name,  vox  et  prceterea  nihil  ?  Is  not  the  traditional 
object  of  an  Englishman's  idolatry,  after  all,  a  nebula  of 
genius,  destined  like  Homer  to  be  resolved  into  its  separate 
and  independent  luminaries,  as  soon  as  we  have  a  criticism 
powerful  enough  for  the  purpose  ?  I  must  not  be  supposed 
for  a  moment  to  countenance  such  scepticism  myself,  though 
it  is  a  subject  worthy  the  attention  of  a  sceptical  age."  ^  — 
(1870). 

James  Russell  Lowell. 
"  Nobody  believes  any  longer  that  immediate  inspiration 
is  possible  in  modern  times ;  .  .  .  and  yet  everybody  seems 
to  take  it  for  granted  of  this  one  man  Shakspere."* — (1870). 

Henry  J.  Ruggles. 
"  This  presents  one  of  the  most  extraordinary  facts  in  the 
history  of  the  human  mind.     It  makes  necessary  the  con- 
clusion that  two  men,  living  contemporaneously  in  the  same 
town,  then  a  comparatively  small  city, —  one  a  philosopher, 

*  Letter  to  Mr.  James  Spedding. 

2  Whipple's  '  Age  of  Elizabeth,'  p.  36. 

'  From  Newman's  '  Grammar  of  Assent,'  p.  276. 

*  Lowell's  'Among  my  Books,'  p.  101.  Mr.  Lowell  and  Dr.  O.  W. 
Holmes  frequently  discussed  this  problem  together,  the  former 
saying  in  explanation,  "It  is  genius."  "No,"  the  Dr.  would  reply 
"It  is  not  genius;  genius  cannot  give  a  man  learning."  Mr.  Long- 
fellow also  had  an  intelligent  interest  iu  the  question,  and  made 
frequent  inquiries  conceruiug  it. 


OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON  ii 

endowed  with  the  most  brilliant  imagination,  the  other  a 
most  imaginative  poet,  possessing  the  profoundest  philo- 
sophical genius,  and  both  reckoned  among  the  greatest  thinkers 
the  world  ever  saw — did,  possibly  in  the  same  year,  at  the 
same  time,  and  certainly  at  the  same  period  of  their  lives, 
write,  without  any  interchange  of  views  or  opinions,  upon 
the  same  identical  subjects,  follow  the  same  train  of  thought, 
arrive  at  the  same  conclusions,  and  digest  the  results  of  their 
study,  reading  and  meditation  into  the  same  system  or  body 
of  philosophy,  the  which  one  stated  to  the  world  in  abstract 
scientific  propositions,  while  the  other  embodied  it  in  poetic 
forms  and  dramatic  creations.  No  coincidence  of  mental 
action  so  remarkable  as  this  can  be  found,  it  is  believed,  in 
any  other  age  of  the  world.' ^ —  (1870). 

W.  Hepworth  Dixon. 
"  What  you  say  about  your  conviction  that  Bacon  wrote 
the  Shakespeare  dramas  is  not  surprising  to  me.     That  ques- 
tion is  a  strange  one,  indeed  ;  but  the  argument  in  proof  of 
your  theory  is  very  strong."* — (1877). 

Charles  Dickens. 

*  The  life  of  Shakespeare  is  a  fine  mystery,  and  I  tremble 
every  day  lest  something  should  turn  up.'"^ —  (1880). 

William  Thomson,  Melbourne. 
♦Identification  will   come   in  due   time.     Meanwhile   the 
admissions   show  how  able  men   perceive   in   the  works  of 
Bacon  indications  of  a  mind  gifted  with  the  highest  poetic 
power."*— (1880). 

Oliver  Wendell  Holmes. 
" Our  Shakespearean  scholars  hereabouts  [Boston,  Mass.] 

^  From  'The  Method  of  Shakespeare  as  an  Artist,'  p.  289. 

2  In  letter  to  Dr.  Robert  M.  Theobald  of  Blackheath,  London. 
Mr.  Dixon,  a  well  known  litterateur,  was  the  author  of  two  works  on 
Francis  Bacon.    He  was  engaged  on  another  at  the  time  of  his  death. 

3  From  Halliwell-Phillipps  '  New  Lamps  or  Old  ?' 

*  From  '  On  Renascence  Drama,'  p.  30. 


12  OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON 


are  very  impatient  whenever  the  question  of  the  authorship  of 
the  Plays  and  Poems  is  even  alluded  to.  It  musi  be  spoken 
of,  whether  they  like  it  or  not.    We'll 

— '  have  a  starling  shall  be  taught  to  speak 
Nothing  but'  — 
Verulam,  whenever  Shakespeare  is  mentioned,  if  need  be.  The 
wonderful  parallelisms  must  and  will  be  wrought  out  and 
followed  out  to  such  fair  conclusions  as  they  shall  be  found 
to  force  honest  minds  to  adopt."  ^ — (1883). 

KuNO  Fischer.* 
"Bacon  desired  nothing  less  than  a  natural  history  of  the 
passions,   the   very   thing   that   Shakespeare   produced."  — 

(1884.) 

William  D.  O'Connor. 
"  Mr.  Richard  Grant  White  says  that  '  the  great  inherent 
absurdity  of  the  Baconian  belief  lies  in  the  uulikeness  of 
Bacon's  mind  and  style  to  those  of  the  writer  of  the  plays.' 
Of  all  fudge  ever  written  this  is  the  sheerest.  What  likeness 
of  mind  and  style  could  he  detect  between  Sir  William  Black- 
stone's  charming  verses,  *  A  Lawyer's  P'arewell  to  his  Muse,' 
and  the  same  Sir  William  Blackstone's  'Commentaries'? 
What  likeness  of  mind  and  style  could  he  establish  between 
the  famous  treatise  by  Grotius  on  the  '  Rights  of  Peace  and 
War,'  and  the  stately  tragedy  by  Grotius  entitled  '  Adam  in 
Exile'  ?  Where  is  the  identity  of  mind  and  style  between 
Sir  Walter  Raleigh's  dry-as-dust  'Cabinet  Council'  and  Sir 

*  Letter  to  Mrs.  Henry  Pott,  London,  England.  Some  doubts 
having  been  cast  upon  Dr.  Holmes'  letter,  we  take  this  opportunity 
to  say  that  the  above  is  a  faithful  transcript  of  a  portion  of  it,  made 
for  us  in  photographic  fac-simile  in  the  British  Museum. 

It  has  also  been  asserted  that  the  poet  changed  his  mind  on  the 
authorship  question  when  he  visited  Stratford  during  the  "Hundred 
Days."  This  is  an  error.  He  simply  expressed  the  opinion,  a  per- 
fectly reasonable  one,  that  almost  any  person,  born  and  bred  in 
that  town  and  subjected  to  all  its  influences,  would  favor  the  local 
traditions. 

*  Professor  of  Philosophy  in  University  of  Heidelberg,  and  one  of 
the  foremost  literary  critics  of  Germany.     Not  a  Baconian. 


OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON  13 

Walter  Raleigh's  magnificent  and  ringing  poem,  'The  Soul's 
Errand'?  What  likeness  of  mind  and  style  could  he  find 
between  Coleridge's  'Aids  to  Reflection'  and  the  unearthly 
bronze  melodies  aud  magian  imagery  of  Coleridge's  *  Kubla 
Khan  '  ?  What  likeness  of  mind  and  style  exists  between  the 
exquisite  riant  grace,  lightness,  and  Watteau-color  of  Milton's 
'  Allegro ',  the  gracious  and  an-dante  movement  and  sweet 
cloistral  imagery  of  Milton's  'Penseroso'  and  the  'Tetra- 
chordon '  or  the  '  Areopagitica '  of  the  same  John  Milton  ? 
Are  the  solemn  rolling  harmonies  of  'Paradise  Lost' 
one  in  mind  and  style  with  the  trip-hammer  crash  of  the 
reply  to  Salmasius  by  Cromwell's  Latin  Secretary  ?     Of  all 

propositions  I  have  ever  heard,  this  of  Mr.  White's  passes 

that  a  man  must  show  the  same  "  mind  and  style  "  in  writing 
science  and  philosophy  that  he  does  in  writing  poetry ! "  * 
(1886). 

Professor  Francis  W.  Newman. 
"Do  the  combatants  intend  to  go  to  the  bottom  of  the 
purely  historical  question  ?  No  more,  I  think,  than  did  the 
ancient  Greek  critics  into  the  Homeric  question.  They  were 
as  proud  of  Homer  as  we  of  Shakespeare,  and  insisted  on 
believing  that  the  blind  '  Homer  '  of  the  Hymn  to  Apollo 
wrote  the  other  hymns,  and  the  'Iliad,'  and  the  'Capture  of 
Troy,'  and  the  '  Margites,'  Modern  criticism  has  made  a 
creat  overturn  of  the  Greek  notion.  .  .  .  Are  the  devotees 
of  Shakspere  determined  to  make  him  a  miracle?  "  *  —  (1887). 


*  From  'Hamlet's  Note  Book,'  p.  56.  Mr.  Hawthorne  was  accus- 
tomed to  say  that  O'Coonor  was  the  only  mau  he  ever  met  who  hail 
read  Miss  Bacon's  book  through  to  the  end. 

As  to  diversity  of  styles,  we  quote  from  Dr.  Abbot's  Life  of 
Francis  Bacon,  p.  447:  "  Few  men  liave  shown  equal  versatility  in 
adapting  their  language  to  the  slightest  shade  of  circumstance  and 
purpose.  His  style  depended  upon  whether  he  was  addressing  a 
king,  or  a  great  nobleman,  or  a  philosopher,  or  a  friend;  whether 
he  was  composing  a  State  paper,  pleading  in  a  State  trial,  magni- 
fying the  Prerogative,  extolling  Truth,  discussing  studies,  exhort- 
ing a  judge,  sending  a  New  Year's  present,  or  sounding  a  trumpet 
to  prepare  the  way  for  the  Kingdom  of  Man  over  Nature." 

^The  Echo,  London. 


14  OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON. 

Count  Vitzthum  D'Eckstaot.^ 
"  I  am  convinced  that  Bacon  left  the  MSS.  either  with 
Percy  or  Sir  Toby  Matthew,  with  authority  to  publish  after 
his  death.  But  the  civil  war  broke  out,  and  the  trustees 
may  have  thought  that  under  the  rule  of  Cromwell  and  the 
Puritans  the  memory  of  Bacon,  as  a  philosopher,  would  have 
been  ruined,  if  it  were  published  that  he  was  the  author  of 
these  dramas.  In  the  interest  of  their  deceased  friend,  they 
may  have  destroyed  the  MSS.,  together  with  the  key."  — 
(1888). 

Louis  dk  Raynal. 
"  It  has  often  been  said  of  Shakespeare  that  he  was  even 
more  of  a  philosopher  than  a  poet.  Bacon's  ambition  was 
to  grasp  the  universe,  making  all  knowledge  his  province. 
Lessing  has  profoundly  remarked  of  Shakespeare  that  his 
drama  is  the  mirror  of  nature.  And  M.  de  R^musat  has  said 
that  'in  Bacon's  ordinary  way  of  reflecting  and  representing 
the  characters  and  affairs  of  men  we  cannot  but  notice 
something  which  brings  Shakespeare  to  mind.'  The  analogy 
between  the  two  is  certainly  very  strong."* —  (1888). 

Walt  Whitman. 
"  Firmly  convinced  that  Shakspere  of  Stratford  could  not 
have  been  the  author."  ='—(1888). 

Sir  Lewis  Moreis. 
"  That  Shakespeare  possessed  an  altogether  extraordinary 
knowledge  of  law,  of  medicine,  of  science,  of  philosophy,  of 
language,  of  everything,  in  short,  which  would  be  impos- 
sible for  an  uneducated  man,  whatever  his  genius  as  a  poet 
might  be,  has  long  seemed  to  me  an  insoluble  mystery." — 
(1888). 

'  Privy  Councillor  to  the  Emperor  of  Austria. 

-  In  a  letter  to  the  *  Correspondant '  (Paris).     This   disting^uishcd 
jurist  says:   "  When  the  editor  of  the  '  Correspondant'  received  my 
article,  he  told  me  that,  after  studying  the  question,  bis  couvictiong 
went  even  beyond  mine." 
.  '  Kennedy's  '  Life  of  Walt  Whitman,'  p.  30. 


OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON  15 

Geeald  Massey. 
"The  philosophical  writings  of  Bacon  are  suffused  and 
saturated  with  Shakespeare's  thought.  .  .  .  These  likenesses  in 
thought  and  expression  are  mainly  limited  to  those  two  con- 
temporaries. It  may  also  be  admitted  that  one  must  have 
copied  from  the  other.  This  fact  is  reasonably  certain,  and 
deserves  to  be  treated  with  courtesy."  * — (1888). 

John  Bright. 
"  Any  man  who  believes  that  William  Shakspere  of  Strat- 
ford wrote  *  Hamlet '  or  '  Lear '  is  a  fool."  2_  (1889). 

W.  E.  Gladstone. 
♦'Considering  what  Bacon  was,  I  have  always    regarded 
your  discussion  as  one  perfectly  serious  and  to  be  respected."  '^ 
—  (1889). 

W.  T.  Harris. 
"I  see   by  your  aid,  better  than   before,  the  strength  of 
Bacon's  claim."  *—  (1890). 

Professor  David  Swing. 
"  If  Shakspere  wrote  the  plays  and  poems  attributed  to 
him,  nothing  is  so  useless  as  a  good  education."^ — (1890). 

Professor  Alexander  Winchell. 
"I  am  a  believer  in  the  Baconian  theory."* —  (1890). 

Professor  Samuel  Edmund  Bengough. 
'*  Experience  disposes  me  to  think  that  most  of  the  finer 
Shakespearean  Plays  may  be  illustrated  from  the  works  of 

'  And  yet  in  the  same  breath  Mr.  Massey  pronounced  the  Bacon- 
ian Theory  "  a  revolt  against  common  sense." 

*  To  an  interviewer  during  his  last  illness.  The  •  Rochdale  Ob- 
server'(his  home  newspaper)  reported  him  as  "  scornfully  angry 
with  deluded  people  who  believe  that  Shakspere  wrote  '  Othello.'  " 
Issue  of  March  27,  1889. 

3  In  letter  to  Dr.  R.  M.  Theobald,  Blackheath,  England. 

*  In  letter  to  us.    Prof.  Harris  is  U.  S.  Commissioner  o£  Education. 
'  In  letter  to  us. 


i6  OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON. 

Bacon  in  the  same  way.  If  this  be  so,  it  certainly  suggests 
the  exceeding  probability  that  the  universal  genius,  enthroned 
by  Ben  Jonson  on  the  summit  of  Parnassus,  and  the  author 
of  the  Plays  were  one  and  the  same  person." —  (1890). 

Rev.  H.  R.  Haweis. 
"We  are  all  Baconians  here."  ' —  (1890). 

John  G.  Whittier. 
*'  I  have  read  thy  able  Brief  with  interest.    Whether  Bacon 
wrote  the  wonderful  plays  or  not,  I  am  quite  sure  the  man 
Shakspere  neither  did   nor  could."    — (1891). 

Gen.  Benjamin  F.  Butler. 
"  I  am  a  firm  believer  in  the  Baconian  theory."  '  — (1891). 

Francis  Pabkman. 
"  Some  of  the  points  you  raise  are  very  hard  to  answer."  * 
—  (1891). 

Mrs.  Harriet  Peescott  Spofpord. 
"  One  who  loves  all  of  Shakespeare  and  who  was  brought 
up  on  Charles  Knight's  conjectural  biography,  and  also  loves 
Bacon  and  burns  with  his  wrongs,  is  cruelly  torn  between 
two  opinions.  But  it  makes  Bacon  a  supernal  being."'  — 
(1891). 

Sir  Joseph  N.  McKenna,  M.  P. 
"  On  the  general  question  of  the  authorship  of  the  Shake- 
speare Plays,  I  may  say  that  I  have  no  more  doubt  that  Lord 
Bacon  was  the  author  of  all  of  them,  and  of  the  poetry  attri- 
buted to  Shakspere,  than  I  have  of  the  fact  that  Pope  wrote 
the  Essay  on  Man."^—  (1891). 


'  In  letter  to  us.  One  year  later  (1891),  Mr.  Haweis  said  that  he  had 
never  met  anyone  who,  having  thoroughly  investigated  the  matter, 
came  to  a  different  conclusion. 

^In  letter  to  us. 


OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON.  17 

Robert  M.  Theobald. 
"I  believe  that  if  the  question  could  be  made  a  material 
one  in  some  action  at  law,  where  either  chaiacter  or  money 
was  at  stake,  it  would  be  perfectly  easy  for  any  barrister  of 
ordinary  skill  to  carry  the  plaintiff's  case  triumphantly  with 
an  intelligent  jury."  1 — (1891). 

Gail  Hamilton. 
*'  You  have  put  it  briefly,  succinctly  ;  it  seems  to  me,  incon- 
trovertibly."2_(1891). 

John  L.  T.  Sneed. 
"  When  one  comes  to  study  the  literature  of  the  subject  in 
an  honest  quest  of  truth,  it  will  occur  to  him,  as  a  strange 
feature  of  the  controversy,  that  the  literary  world  has  con- 
fided for  three  hundred  years  in  tradition  alone,  and  thus 
accepted  the  belief  that  the  jolly  lessee  of  the  Globe  and 
Blackfriars  wrote  the  celebrated  plays,  collected  after  his 
death  in  the  folio  of  1623 ;  and  yet,  upon  thorough  investi- 
gation, it  is  manifest  that  he  never  wrote  a  line  of  them."^  — 
(1891). 

Ltsander  Hill. 

"  The  weight  of  evidence  is,  I  think,  in  favor  of  Bacon."  * 
—  (1891). 

Henry  Labouchere. 

"  The  case  for  Bacon,  thus  put,  is  a  strong  one.  There  is 
nothing  particularly  improbable  in  Shakespeare,  as  the  man- 

^  In  letter  to  us. 

^Miss  Abigail  Dodge  in  letter  to  us.  She  said  further  that  one 
day,  as  she  was  reading  the  historical  Plays,  the  conviction  sud- 
denly flashed  upon  her  mind  that  Shakspere,  considering  his  posi- 
tion in  life,  could  never  have  written  them.  He  did  not  have,  and 
under  the  circumstances  could  not  have  had,  the  kind  of  knowl- 
edge necessary  for  the  purpose.  "You  have  now  converted  me, 
and  I  shall  never  be  re-converted." 

•  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Judicial  Court  of  the  State  of  Tennessee, 
in  letter  to  us. 

*  It  was  this  utterance  of  a  college  classmate,  an  eminent  lawyer 
of  Chicago  and  a  gentleman  of  strongly  conservative  tendencies, 
tliat  first  called  our  serious  attention  to  this  controversy. 


i8  OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON, 

ager  of  a  theatre,  having  given  liis  name  to  plays  that  he 
produced,  and  the  author  of  which  had  grounds  not  to  wish 
to  be  known  as  their  writer.  In  any  case,  it  is  not  more 
improbable  than  that  the  uneducated  son  of  a  man  who  could 
not  write,  and  whose  daughter  could  not  write,  came  up  to 
London  from  a  small  country  town,  very  shortly  afterwards 
wrote  a  play  like  Hamlet,  and  followed  it  up  with  plays  which 
involved  a  knowledge  of  ancient  and  modern  literature,  of 
several  foreign  languages,  and  of  the  niceties  of  forensic  pro- 
cedure ;  and  then  went  back  to  his  country  town  to  consort 
with  the  clowns  who  had  been  the  friends  of  his  youth."  *  — 
(1891). 

Prince  Bismarck. 

"  On  this,  as  on  a  previous  occasion,  Bismarck  referred  to  the 
controversy  concerning  the  authorship  of  Shakespeare's  plays. 
He  gave  expression  to  a  half-hearted  belief  that  there  might 
well  be  something  in  the  supposition  that  Lord  Bacon  and 
not  Shakespeare  had  written  them.  <  Well,  well,'  he  said, 
with  one  of  his  significant  looks  implying  doubt  or  at  least 
an  open  mind  on  the  subject,  '  after  all  there  may  be  some- 
thing in  it.'  He  did  not  pretend  to  any  special  knowledge, 
but  he  said  that  he  could  not  understand  how  it  were  possible 
that  a  man,  however  gifted  with  the  intuition  of  genius,  could 
have  written  what  was  attributed  to  Shakespeare  unless  he 
had  been  in  touch  with  the  great  affairs  of  state,  behind  the 
scenes  of  political  life,  and  also  intimate  with  all  the  social 
courtesies  and  refinements  of  thought  which,  in  Shakespeare's 
time,  were  only  to  be  met  with  in  the  highest  circles. 

It  also  seemed  to  Prince  Bismarck  incredible  that  the  man 
who  had  written  the  greatest  dramas  in  the  world's  literature, 
could  of  his  own  free  will,  whilst  still  in  the  prime  of  life, 
have  retired  to  such  a  place  as  Stratford-on-Avon  and  lived 
there  for  years,  cut  off  from  intellectual  society  and  out  of 
touch  with  the  world."  2—  (1892). 

1  The  Truth,  London. 

^  From  Sidney  Whitman's  '  Personal  Reminiscences  of  Princo 
Bismarck,'  pp.  136-6. 


OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON.  19 

Thomas  W.  White. 

"  I  have  been  driven  to  the  conclusion  that  Shakspere 
had  nothing  to  do  witli  the  composition  of  the  Plays." ' — 
(1892). 

Frances  E.  Willard. 

"  It  seems  perfectly  reasonable  to  me  that  Lord  Bacon  and 
a  number  of  other  brilliant  thinkers  of  the  Elizabeth  era, 
who  were  nobles,  and  who,  owing  to  the  position  of  the  stage, 
would  not  care  to  have  their  names  associated  with  the  drama, 
composed  or  moulded  the  plays."" —  (1893). 

O.  B.  Frothingham. 
"  In  his  general  position  as  showing  the  impossibility  of 
the  Shaksperean  authorship  Mr.  Reed  is  unanswerable."'-  — 
(1893). 

"  There  is  a  bitter  tragedy  in  the  mistaken  enthusiasm  that 
for  more  than  two  centuries  has  been  scattering  flowers  on 
the  wrong  grave  and  laying  garlands  on  the  wrong  head."  — 
Idem. 

Professor  A.  E.  Dolbear. 
"  It  appears  from  the  evidence  presented  highly  improbable 
that  Shakspere  either  wrote  or  could  have  written  what  has 
been  attributed  to  him."-—  (1893). 

Mary  A.  Livermore. 
"The  arguments  for  Bacon  [in    the    'Arena  Magazine'] 
demonstrate  the  impossibility    of   the  Shaksperean    author- 
ship.    Some  other  person  than  William  Shakspere  wrote  the 
Shakespeare  Plays."  2_  (1893). 

William  Theobald. 
"  Shakspere,  whose  name  suggested  the  pseudonym  under 
which  the  plays  appeared,  could  have  had  no  possible  objec- 
tion as  an  actor  to  be  thought  the  writer  of  the  plays  pro- 


'■  'Our  English  Homer,'  viii. 

*The  'Arena  Magazine,'  Boston,  Mass. 


20  OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON. 

duced  under  his  management.  The  attribution  added  to  his 
importance,  and  may  have  swelled  his  profits.  But  with  Bacon 
the  case  was  far  different.  His  mother  was  a  rigid  Puritan, 
who  detested  plays  and  actors,  and  to  whom  it  would  have 
been  a  terrible  affliction  had  she  known  that  her  son,  of  whose 
abilities  she  was  so  proud,  was  wasting  liis  time  and  energies 
on  such  compositions.  Would  such  a  mother  as  his  have  felt 
easy  in  her  mind  as  to  the  sources  whence  her  son  had  derived 
his  models  for  such  characters  as  Doll  Tearsheet  and  Mistress 
Quickly?'"— (1894). 

Edwin  Borman. 
"  Bacon's  Instauratio  Magna  is  composed  of  two  parts.  He 
wrote  one  part  in  form  of  scientific  prose  and  under  his  own 
name ;  he  wrote  the  other,  the  parabolical  part,  which  was 
intended  for  the  future  of  humanity  in  the  form  of  dramas 
under  the  pseudonym  of  William  Shakespeare."  (1894). 

Thekon  S.  E.  Dixon. 
"  We  cannot  conclude  without  a  brief  word  of  tribute  to 
Delia  Bacon.  Alone,  and  first  in  all  the  world,  she  discerned 
Bacon^s  authorship  of  the  plays.  Realizing  profoundly  the 
value  of  her  discovery,  this  noble  woman  freely  devoted  her 
life  to  its  development.  Crossing  the  Atlantic  to  prosecute 
her  researches  in  London,  she  was  compelled  by  her  poverty 
to  live  there  in  a  garret,  and  almost  literally  upon  bread  and 
water.  Through  the  effect  of  her  privations  while  thus 
absorbed  in  her  work,  her  mind  at  length  became  clouded, 
and  her  life  went  out  in  darkness,  —  a  sacrifice  to  her  devo- 
tion. But  through  her  untiring  efforts,  her  discovery  had 
been  published ;  and  since  then  all  who  have  dealt  with  the 

1  From  an  address  delivered  at  Budleigli  Salterton  in  1894.  It  is 
pertinent  to  add  that  Sir  Thomas  Bodley,  who  founded  the  library 
that  bears  his  name  at  Oxford  and  who  would  not  admit  dramas 
(which  he  called  "  riffe  raffes  ")  into  it,  tells  us  that  Bacon  "  wasted 
many  years  of  his  life  on  such  study  as  was  not  worthy  of  him." 
What  studies?  Who  can  suggest  one  that  fits,  if  it  be  not  dramatic? 
And  if  dramatic,  what  so  likely  as  the  Shake-speare  Plays,  thirty 
+hree  editions  of  which,  taken  singly,  were  anonymous? 


OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON.  21 

theme  have  but  labored  in  the  exploration  and  development 
of  the  rich  mine  she  first  discovered  and  disclosed  to  the 
world ;  — and  to  her  be  the  wreath  of  immortality."  — (1895). 

Bernard  Ten  Brink. 
"  The  world's  continued  belief  in  Shakspere  is  a  morbid 
phenomenon  of  the  time."  '  —  (1895). 

Alexander  B.  Grosart. 
*'  I  can't  help  anticipating  that,  some  of  these  days,  Bacon 
letters  or  other  papers  will  turn  up,  interpretive  of  his,  at 
present,  dark  phrase  to  Sir  John  Davies,  of  *  your  concealed 
poet.'  We  have  noble  contemporary  poetry,  unhappily  anony- 
mous, and  I  shall  not  be  surprised  to  find  Bacon  the  concealed 
singer  of  some  of  it.  May  I  live  to  have  my  expectation 
verified." 

Professor  Geokg  Cantor.' 
"  For  many  years  I  have  in  hours  of  leisure  granted  me 
given  much  study  to  the  life  and  works  of  Francis  Bacon, 
who  in  my  eyes  is  one  of  the  greatest  geniuses  of  Chris- 
tianity. By  this  I  have  become  persuaded  that  the  opinion, 
so  ridiculed  by  most  scholars,  that  he  was  the  author  of  the 
Shakespearean  dramas,  is  founded  on  truth."  —  (1896). 

George  .Tames. 
"To  believe  Shakspere  to  have  written  these  wondrous 
works,  saturated  through  and  through  with  the  reforming 
spirit  of  Francis  Bacon,  containing  his  philosophic  theories 
and  discoveries,  advocating  his  new  philosophy  over  that  of 
Aristotle,  containing  the  favorite,  forceful  phrases  of  his 
mother,  the  Lady  Anne,  his  brother  Anthony,  and  the  Earl 
of  Essex ;  —  to  believe  that  William  Shakspere  wrote  these 
is  to  violate  every  principle  of  common  sense,  and  be  blind 

^  Five  Lectures  on  Shakespeare. 

^  Professor    of  Mathematics   and    Doctor  of  Philosophy  in   the 
twin  universities  of  Halle  a.d.  Saale  and  Wittenberg. 


22  OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON. 

to   truths     plain    as    beacon     lights    for    our    guidance."  * 
—  (1896). 

John  A.  Bingham. 
"  The  careful  reading  of  your  book  has  confirmed  me  in 
the  opinion,  long  since  formed,  that  the  author  of  the 
immortal  plays  was  foremost  of  living  men  in  all  the  liter- 
ature and  learning  of  his  time,  and  who  had  taken  '  all 
knowledge  for  his  province.'  "  ^  —  (1896). 

Rev.  L.  C.  Manchester. 
"  Only  once  grant  that  Bacon  lacked  imagination  (he  had 
infinite  imagination),  that  he  was  devoid  of  humor  (his 
humor  was  unbounded  and  inextinguishable),  that  he  had  no 
leisure  to  write  the  plays  (he  had  years  of  waiting  for  plaoe 
and  work  and  years  of  struggle  with  debt),  that  he  had  no 
poetic  faculty  (his  noblest  prose  is  the  highest  poetry  in  all 
but  metre),  that  he  was  cold  and  unsympathetic  and  selfish 
( Sir  Tobie  Matthew,  and  Rawleigh  and  other  contemporaries 
did  not  think  so)  —  only  grant  these  postulates  (all  false) 
and  a  few  others,  and  it  will  be  certain  that  he  did  not  write 
the  plays." 2 —(1896). 

Professor ? 


"  I  am  a  concealed  Baconian." —  (1897). 

Edward  James  Castle,  Q.  C. 
"  Malone  twisted  this  apology  of  Chettle's  into  an  apology 
to  Shakespeare,  It  is  difficult  to  see  how  the  language  could 
be  so  understood,  even  by  one  of  his  most  ardent  admirers. 
The  letter  was  not  addressed  to  Shakespeare  ;  he  was  not  one 
of  the  play-writers  ;  he  was  a  pretender  in  Greene's  eyes,  and 
as  far  as  one  can  see  he  was  severely  let  alone  by  Chettle. 
Of  course,  it  is  immaterial  whether  Chettle  apologized  to  him, 

i  »  Short  Stories  on  the  Origin  of  the  Plays.'     Birmingham,  Eng. 

2  In  letter  to  us. 

8 University,  Switzerland. 


OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON.  23 

or  to  Peele  or  Lodge.  But  it  is  material  to  see  whether  a 
whole  succession  of  writers,  Malone,  Steevens,  Dyce,  Collier, 
Halliwell,  Knight,  and  a  host  of  minor  authors,  are  so  blinded 
by  their  admiration  for  Shakespeare  that  they  cannot  read  a 
simple  document  correctly.'" —  (1897). 

Thomas  Davidson. 
"  For  many  years  I  have  felt  exactly  as  Whittier  did,  sure 
that  Shakspere  did  not  write  the  Plays.     I  believe  you  have 
proved  your  thesis."  - —  (1898). 

Dk.  Theodore  Strater.^ 
"  There  are,  in  this  view,  many  more  treasures  yet  to  be 
gathered  from  Shakespeare,  of  the  riches  of  which  few  have 
an  idea.     Shakespeare  is,  in  truth,  as  Vischer*  calls  him,  '■a 
yet  unknown  master  of  composition.''  "  —  (1898). 

Birmingham  (Eng.)  Daily  Gazette. 
"  The  greatest  of  poets  '  walked  the  earth  unguessed  at,' 
said  Matthew  Arnold.  He  has  been  guessed  at  ever  since. 
Biographers  fill  up  the  gaps  in  his  life  much  as  the  old 
geographers  filled  up  the  blank  spaces  in  the  map  of  Africa 
by  putting  elephants  in  place  of  towns ;  —  the  biographers  fill 
up  intervals  of  two  or  five  years  by  saying  — '  Perhaps,' 
*  Probably,'  'Maybe,'  and  'Doubtless.'  Mr.  Edwin  Reed 
contends  that  there  was  an  actor  at  Stratford-on- Avon,  named 
William  Shakspere,  and  that  his  name  ought  not  to  be  con- 
fused with  the  pen-name  William  Shakespeare  which  ap- 
peared on  the  printed  edition  of  the  famous  2^l3,ys.  His 
volume  of  close  on  300  pages  is  packed  with  historical  facts. 
There  is  nothing  in  it  about  cryptograms,  ciphers,  and  other 
crazes ;  and  that  is  a  blessing.     Mr.  Reed  depends  upon  his- 

1  Mr.  Castle  contends  that  Bacon  and  Shakspere  collaborated  in 
the  composition  of  the  Plays. 

2  In  letter  to  us. 

^  A  German  philosopher  and  author  of  high  repute. 
^  Friedrich  Theodore  Vischer,  a  German  writer,  born  at  Ludwigs- 
burg  in  1807;  became  Professor  of  rhilosoi)hy  at  TUbingen  in  1844. 


24  OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON. 

tory,  parallel  facts,  coincidences,  and  other  things  capable  of 
definition  or  demonstration.  We  purpose  to  select  a  few  of 
his  points,  without  comment,  except  to  say  that  a  bare  setting 
forth  of  casual  statements  is  scarcely  just  to  the  author,  any 
more  than  the  production  of  a  few  bricks  would  suffice  to 
show  the  style  and  quality  of  an  architect's  designs.  Mr. 
Keed's  volume  is  valuable  as  showing  the  cumulative  evi- 
dence in  favour  of  Bacon,  and  though  that  evidence  may  be 
successfully  rebutted  it  must  be  considered  as  a  whole  before 
its  true  weight  can  be  ascertained.  In  order  to  produce  a 
good  and  trustworthy  work  Mr.  Reed  has  studied,  and  he 
quotes  no  fewer  than  117  authorities,  only  eleven  of  whom 
favour  the  Baconian  theory.  The  remaining  106  are  Shakes- 
peareans  —  who  unconsciously  help  Mr.  Reed  to  his  con- 
clusions. 


"  Here  we  must  cease.  We  have  not  mentioned  one-fourth 
of  Mr.  Reed's  arguments,  facts,  and  deductions,  nor  can  we 
mention  those  subjects  which  cannot  be  condensed  into  a 
sentence.  But  we  have  probably  said  enough  to  show  that 
in  Mr.  Reed's  three  hundred  pages  there  is  matter  for  reflec- 
tion. No  doubt  it  is  all  nonsense  of  the  saddest  and  sorriest 
kind.  No  doubt  the  300  pages  of  elaborate  demonstration 
can  be  demolished  by  a  touch  of  the  finger — and  this  makes 
it  so  very  surprising  that  no  one  arises  and  demolishes  it ! 
We  prefer  to  leave  to  others  a  task  so  simple,  and  will 
reserve  our  own  energies  for  something  more  difficult." 
—  (1898). 

Percy  W.  Ames,  F.  S.  A. 
"  Shakspere  has  not  only  occupied  the  chief  place  in  our 
respect  and  veneration,  but  he  has  also  won  his  way  into  our 
affections,  and  this  it  is  that  makes  his  dethronement  at  once 
difficult  and  painful,  even  though  our  better  judgment  tells 
us  that  he  was  but  the  mask  for  the  real  author.  .  .  We 
can  Btill  speak  of  our  Shakespeare,    although   with   deeper 


OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON.  25 

feelings  and  with  more  rational  sentiment ;  but  when  we 
wish  to  get  behind  those  brilliant  productions  to  have  a 
glimpse  of  the  actual  author,  we  think  not  of  the  common- 
place bourgeois  of  Stratford,  but  of  the  poet  and  sage  of 
St.  Albans."'  — (1898.) 

E.  W.  S.» 
"  That  he  ever  cherished  any  ambition  more  exalted  than 
that  of  being  allowed  to  add  esquire  to  his  name  ;  that  it  ever 
occurred  to  him  that  he  owned  any  right  to,  power  over,  or 
interest  in  such  a  thing  as  a  manuscript;  that  he  possessed  or 
wished  to  possess  anything  in  the  shape  of  a  library ;  that  he 
had  acquired  a  taste  for  poetry  or  prose,  history  or  philos- 
ophy ;  on  all  these  points  we  have  abundance  of  conjecture 
indeed,  but  of  evidence  fit  to  be  trusted  not  one  tittle.  .  . 
It  certainly  cannot  be  proved  that  English  literature  owes 
anything  whatever  to  his  pen,  except  perhaps  the  mellifluous 
lines  which  in  his  lifetime  he  ordered  to  be  cut  upon  his 
tombstone."— (1899) 

Pall  Mall  Gazette  (London). 

"The  day  has  come  when,  rejecting  fictitious  lives  of 
an  imaginary  Shakspeare,  and  scrutinizing  the  insignificant 
circumstances  which  are  all  that  is  known  of  him,  the  dis- 
crepancy becomes  more  and  more  apparent  between  the 
intellectual  genius  of  the  author  of  the  plays  and  the  sordid 
and  squalid  characteristics  of  the  man  of  Stratford."  — 
(1900). 

W.  H.  Edwards. 

*'  The  English-speaking  world  has  been  humbugged  in  this 
matter  long  enough."'  —  (1900). 

1  From  Baconiana,  VI,  24.  Mr.  Ames  is  Secretary  of  the  Royal 
Society  of  Literature,  London. 

^E.  W.  Smithson,  author  of  'Shakespeare-Bacon,  An  Essay.' 
London :  Swan,  Sonnenschein  &  Co.  An  exceedingly  interesting  and 
finely  written  brochure.  The  passage,  above  quoted,  is  taken  from 
the  appendix. 

3  Shaksper,  not  Shakespeare.'    Cincinnati:  Robert  Clarke  «fe  Co. 


26  OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON. 

Samuel  F.  Barr. 

*'  The  Bacon-Shakspeie  controversy  has  reached  a  crisis. 
The  Baconians  produce  a  chain  of  circumstantial  evidence 
for  their  contention  sufficient  to  carry  the  judgment  of  any 
intelligent  juror,  even  in  a  capital  case  ;  and  all  the  evidence 
attainable  musi  be  circumstantial.  The  Shakspereans  deny 
these  proofs  presented,  and  answer  argument  with  vitupera- 
tion. They  nickname  a  controversy  that  began  during 
Shakspere's  active  life  in  London,  when  the  Plays  were  com- 
ing out  on  the  stage,  '  new,'  '  whimsical,'  and  '  nonsense.* 
They  offer  no  proof  that  the  unlearned  actor  wrote  these 
masterpieces  of  scholarly  genius ;  while  you  have  demon- 
strated the  impossibility  of  an  uneducated  yokel  having 
written  them.  And  yet  the  myth-worshippers  shout  Hallelu- 
jahs to  their  idol  and  cling  to  their  credulity.  In  this  they 
are  not  alone. 

"  But  all  myths  must  yield  in  time,  if  combated:  Slavery 
as  a  divine  institution,  polygamy,  witchcraft,  for  ages  held 
men  in  bondage,  relying  on  immemorial  prescription,  general 
custom,  and  the  sacred  law.  Who  does  not  now  despise  any 
one  who  tolerates,  practises  or  defends  tliese  hoary  super- 
stitions ?  Belief  in  none  of  these  exploded  follies  and 
crimes  is  less  degrading  to  the  mind  than  a  continuance  in 
the  myth  that  an  unlearned  actor  who  left  no  literary 
remains,  no  books,  no  members  of  his  family  able  to  read  or 
write,  whose  parents  made  marks  for  their  signatures,  and 
whose  active  money-making  life  excludes  all  possibility  of 
needful  self-education,  produced  these  learned  and  phil- 
osophical masterpieces,  —  unless  a  greater  degradation  is 
displayed  in  rejecting  the  now  overwhelming  evidence  that 
these  Plays  were  conceived  by  a  man  who,  even  in  youth, 
took  '  all  knowledge '  for  his  province,  and  whose  astonish- 
ing genius  and  vigorous  intellect  made  him  easily  the  first 
scholar  of  his  time,  and  the  teacher  for  all  time."  ^  —  (1901). 

^  In  letter  to  us. 


OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON.  27 

William  A.  Sutton,  S.  J. 

"  Sir  Francis  Cruise  has  been  for  many  years  what  may  be 
called  the  Apostle  of  Baconianism  in  Ireland.  He  it  was 
who  made  a  convert  of  Judge  Henn.  He  found  him  one 
day,  when  sick,  reading  Shakespeare.  When  the  doctor 
appeared,  the  learned  judge  closed  the  book,  saying  that  he 
found  the  immortal  dramatist  a  great  solace  in  the  tedious- 
liess  of  illness.  '  But,'  said  Sir  Francis,  '  are  you  sure  that 
the  dramatist  was  really  named  Shakespeare  ?  For  my  part, 
I  am  quite  sure  that  tbe  Stratford  player  never  wrote  a  line 
of  the  plays  or  poems.'  Sir  Francis  describes  with  great 
humor  how  the  judge  looked  at  him,  as  if  he  thought  he  was 
a  lunatic,  while  at  the  same  time  evidently  thinking  of  the 
probable  consequences  of  being  attended  in  his  illness  by  a 
man  capable  of  such  fantastic  notions.  However,  after 
some  conversation  and  a  course  of  reading  prescribed  by  his 
physician,  the  invalid  became  what  he  remained  to  the  end, 
an  enthusiastic  supporter  and  propagator  of  the  only  rational 
solution  of  the  Shakespearean  mystery. 

"  Some  two  years  ago.  Judge  Henn  met  an  Anglican  dig- 
nitary at  a  country  house  in  Galway,  who  showed  signs  of 
pain  and  repugnance  when  spoken  to  about  Bacon  as  the 
undoubted  author  of  Shake-speare,  whereupon  the  subject 
was  dropped.  But  the  next  day,  when  the  canon  was  leav- 
ing, he  consented  to  take  with  him  Reed's  « Bacon  vs.  Shak- 
spere.'  Soon  after,  in  a  letter  which  the  judge  read  for  me, 
he  cordially  thanked  him  for  the  great  service  rendered,  and 
added  :  "  I  am  quite  sure  now  that  the  player  Shakspere 
never  wrote  a  line  of  the  works  commonly  ascribed  to  him.' " 
'—  (1901). 

W.  H.  Mallock. 

"  The  mere  theory  that  Bacon  was  the  real  author  of  the 
plays,  though  the  mass  of  Shakespeare's  readers  still  set  it 
down  as  a  delusion,  does  not,  indeed,  contain  anything  essen- 

*  From  Bacon  I  ANA,  July,  1901. 


28  OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON. 

tially  shocking  to  common  sense.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  gen- 
erally recognized  that  on  purely  a  prion  grounds  there  is 
less  to  shock  common  sense  in  the  idea  that  those  wonderful 
compositions  were  the  work  of  a  scholar,  a  philosopher,  a 
statesman,  and  a  profound  man  of  the  world  than  there  is  in  the 
idea  that  they  were  the  work  of  a  notoriously  ill-educated 
actor,  who  seems  to  have  found  some  difficulty  in  signing  his 
own  name.  *  —  (1901). 

Annie  L.  Edwards. 
"  The  Baconian  theory  is  a  search  for  truth,  a  study  in 
evolution,  constructive,  not  destructive,  a  part  of  the  arch- 
jeological  spirit  of  the  age  that  insists  upon  a  scientific  exam- 
ination of  all  traditions  and  relics  in  order  to  have  a 
satisfying  reason  for  its  faith.  The  Bacon-Shakspere  Ques- 
tion should  at  least  be  frankly  acknowledged  to  be  an  open 
one  by  both  parties,  and  as  such  presented  to  the  younger 
generation,  who  cannot  afford  to  start  with  the  old  unquali- 
fied belief  of  Shakespeareans."^  —  (1901). 

A.    P.    SiNNETT. 

"  The  difficulty  hitherto  of  getting  a  fair  hearing  for  the 
mere  literary  argument  has  chiefly  arisen  from  the  illogical 
resentment  shown  by  many  people  at  the  bare  idea  of  de- 
throning a  national  idol.  Shakespeare  has  so  long  been 
thought  of  as  a  genius  of  the  very  foremost  order  that  any 
suggestion,  tending  to  prove  that  he  was  a  very  common- 
place person  in  reality,  is  treated  as  though  it  involved  an 
attempt  to  detract  from  the  sublimity  of  the  works  bearing 
his  name.  But  in  reason  it  must  be  conceded  that  we  worship 
the  memory  of  Shakespeare  because  we  admire  Hamlet,  King 
Lear,  and  the  rest.  We  do  not  admire  the  plays  because  any 
particular  man  wrote  them.  .  .  .  The  question  is  still  one 
which  most  English  newspapers  and  periodicals  are  afraid  to 
discuss  freely  for  fear  of  offending  the  blind  prejudice  above 

^  From  Nineteenth  Century  and  After. 
2  In  letter  to  us. 


OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON.  29 

referred  to.  Orthodox  Shaksperean  biographers  simply 
ignore  the  all  important  question  as  though  it  were  a  craze 
in  notorious  antagonism  to  well-known  facts,  like  the  idea 
that  the  earth  is  flat,  and  in  this  way  the  minds  of  people 
who  might  be  capable  of  independent  judgment,  if  they  had 
the  evidence  before  them,  are  left  in  complete  ignorance  of 
the  prodigious  force  residing  in  the  Baconian  argument  — 
unless,  indeed,  they  have  gone  out  of  their  way  to  make  a 
special  study  of  the  Baconian  books."  ' — (1901). 

Mks.  Helen  Hinton  Stewart. 

Lesson  to  English  School-boys. 

Shakspek. 
"To  gain  command  of  English  words  and  every  grammar  rule, 
'Tis  best  to  be  a  butcher's  son,  and  never  go  to  school. 

To  form  good  plays  in  perfect  style,  and  full  of  classic  knowledge, 
'Tis  best  to  be  a  poacher  bold,  and  never  go  to  college. 

To  write  of  ladies,  lords  and  dukes,  of  kings  and  kingly  sport, 
'Tis  best  to  be  a  common  man,  and  never  go  to  court. 

To  write  about  philosophy,  and  law,  and  medicine, 

'Tis  best  to  stand  at  horses'  heads,  and  never  read  a  line. 

To  treat  of  foreign  lands  in  strains  that  all  men  must  applaud, 
'Tis  best  to  stay  in  England,  and  never  go  abroad. 

To  proTe  that  study  cannot  be  '  deep-searched  with  saucy  looks,' 
'TiB  best  to  use  a  crib,  and  shun  all  Greek  and  Latin  books. 

To  scale  the  heights  of  human  bliss  and  sound  the  depths  of  woe, 
'Tig  best  to  make  a  steady  '  pile,'  and  never  let  it  go. 

When  come  to  ripe  maturity  and  genius  has  full  play, 
'Tis  best  to  lead  an  easy  life,  and  lay  the  pen  away. 

To  show  that  '  knowledge  is  the  wing  whereby  we  fly  to  heaven,' 
'Tis  best  that  to  your  own  dear  child  no  lesson  should  be  given. 

To  leave  behind  immortal  fame  as  England's  greatest  bard, 
'Tis  best  to  own  no  manuscripts  and  die  of  '  drinking  hard.' 

Bacon. 
To  win  injustice  and  contempt  from  every  biassed  mind, 
'Tis  best  to  be  the  '  wisest  and  the  brightest  of  mankind.' 

1  From  the  National  Review,  August,  1901. 


30  OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON. 

Z'  Eni'oi  Serieux. 
Shake-Speare. 
To  warn  the  strong,  to  teach  the  proud,  to  give  new  knowledge  scope, 
'Twas  best  to  use  a  nom-de-plume,  and  write  in  faith  and  hope 
That  future  ages,  wiser  grown,  would  learn  the  royal  rule, 
That  knowledge  does  not  come  to  those  who  never  go  to  school."^ 
—  (1901). 

Judge  Webb. 
"Nothing  nowadays  is  sacred.  Here,  as  elsewhere,  the 
higher  criticism  has  been  at  work.  Difliculties  in  the  way  of 
the  orthodox  belief  have  stimulated  inquiry  ;  inquiry  has  sug- 
gested doubt ;  and  doubt  has  largely  developed  into  dis- 
belief. .  .  The  author  of  the  plays  himself  suggests  the 
only  way  of  determining  the  question.  In  the  Sonnets  he 
complains  that  every  word  of  his  all  but  told  his  name,  and 
the  American  school  of  critics  has  taken  and  acted  on  the 
hint.  The  English  school  had  ransacked  ancient  literature 
to  show  the  familiarity  of  Shakespeare  with  the  classics ;  the 
American  school,  on  the  other  hand,  has  ransacked  the 
works  of  Bacon,  to  show  the  astonishing  parallelisms  between 
them  and  the  works  of  Shakespeare.  The  old  school  at  the 
utmost  threw  a  doubt  on  the  pretensions  of  the  half-educated 
young  man  who  came  up  from  Stratford ;  but  it  is  only  on 
the  labors  of  the  new  school  that  we  can  rely  for  a  demon- 
stration that  Shakespeare  was  another  name  for  Bacon."  * 
—  (1902). 

Thos.  Covkrdale. 
"  I  am  one  of  those  who  believe  that  Bacon  wrote  Shake- 
speare, and  who  do  not  require  hidden  messages  and  other 
mysteries  to  strengthen  the  faith  that  is  in  them.     In  writing 
to  the  local  newspapers  here  on  the  subject,  I  have  plainly 

^  From  the  Literary  World  (London)  April  5,  1901. 

2  From  The  Mystery  of  IVilltam  Shakespeare,  A  Summary  of  Evidence, 
page  237.  His  Honor  was  Regius  Professor  of  Law  and  Public  Orator 
in  the  University  of  Dublin;  Sometime  Fellow  of  Trinity  College. 
The  recent  death  of  Judge  Webb  (1903)  is  a  calamity,  not  only  to 
his  admiring  countrymen,  but  also,  in  the  department  of  letters,  to 
the  world.  His  book,  both  in  manner  and  matter,  is  an  honor  to 
our  age. 


r» 


OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON.  31 

expressed  the  opinion  that  these  ciphers  and  cryptograms 
and  infolded  meanings  do  but  serve  to  distract  attention 
from  the  main  issue,  and  afford  material  to  the  scoffer."  * 
— Christchurch,  New  Zealand  (1902). 

Georgb  C.  Bompas. 
"The  facts  of  Shakspere's  life  render  his  authorship  of  the 
plays  so  inconceivable  that  Schlegel  pronounces  it  '  a  mere 
fabulous  story,  a  blind  and  extravagant  error.'  But  in  these 
plays  the  genius  of  Bacon  is  manifest ;  they  bear  the  stamp 
of  his  character,  they  reflect  his  intellect,  they  speak  his 
language,  they  mirror  his  life."^  — (1902). 

The  Da.ily  News  (London). 
"  There  is  nothing  very  outrageous  in  the  supposition  that 
the  same  mind  might  have  given  birth  to  the  Essays  and 
*Hamlet.'"— (1902). 

R.  B.  Marston. 

"  I  am  not  a  Baconian,  but  I  have  a  perfectly  open  mind 
on  the  matter.  I  have  no  objection  at  all  to  being  convinced 
that  Sir  Francis  Bacon  wrote  the  splendid  dramas  attributed 
to  Shakespeare ;  it  is  so  much  easier  to  suppose  from  our  un- 
questionable knowledge  of  his  life  and  genius  that  he  might 
have  written  them,  than  to  accept  from  the  unquestioned 
little  that  we  know  of  Shakspere  and  his  life  that  he  could 
have  done  so. 

"  It  is  unnecessary  to  refer  at  length  to  the  extraordinary 
similarity  in  the  knowledge  of  law,  science,  art,  politics,  his- 
tory, literature,  and  every  other  branch  of  human  under- 
standing, exhibited  by  Shakespeare  and  Bacon." — (1902). 

A  Journalist. 
"  The  enterprise  of  making  book-reviewing  a  daily  news 
patent  precludes  long  notices.     It  also,  as  you  will  under- 

•  In  letter  to  us. 

»  From  'The  Problem  of  the  Shakespeare  Playi,'  p.  116. 


32  OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON. 

stand,  precludes  real  criticism  of  books,  which,  like  yours, 
require  profound  and  prolonged  study,  and  considerable 
space  for  their  examination  ;  and,  again,  it  compels  conces- 
sions to  the  invincible  superficiality  of  the  vulgar. 

•*  So,  in  saying  that  it  makes  no  practical  difference  who 
wrote  the  plays,  I  was  adopting  the  vulgar  flippancy  to  ex- 
cuse, vis-a-vis  my  newspaper-sceptics,  my  own  earnest  interest 
in  the  problem."  1— (1902). 

Loud  Penzance. 
•»  It  is  desperately  hard,  nay,  impossible  to  believe  that 
this  uninstructed,  untutored  youth,  as  he  came  from  Strat- 
ford, should  have  written  these  plays ;  and  almost  as  hard,  as 
it  seems  to  me,  to  believe  that  he  should  have  rendered  him- 
self capable  of  writing  them  by  elaborate  study  after- 
wards. .  .  The  difficulty  of  imagining  this  young  man  to 
have  converted  himself  in  a  few  years  from  a  state  bordering 
on  ignorance  into  a  deeply  read  student,  master  of  French 
and  Italian,  as  well  as  of  Greek  and  Latin,  and  capable  of 
quoting  and  borrowing  largely  from  writers  in  all  these 
languages,  is  almost  insuperable.  .  .  His  name  once 
removed  from  the  controversy,  there  will  not,  I  think,  be 
much  question  as  to  the  lawyer  to  whose  pen  the  Shake- 
speare   plays   are    to    be    attributed."^ — (1903). 

JOSIAH    P.    QuiNCY. 

"What  it  has  seemed  to  me  most  politic  to  undertake  is  to 
break  the  force  of  the  silly  contempt  which  has  been  lavished 
upon  such  sober  ai'guments  as  you  have  given  to  the  world. 
Such  arguments  are  answered  only  when  they  are  answered 
at  their  best,  and  this,  so  far  as  I  know,  has  never  been  done. 
For  this  best  is  the  cumulative  force  of  hundreds  of  indica- 
tions, any  one  of  which,  if  it  stood  singly,  might  easily  be 

^  In  letter  to  us,  from  the  literary  editor  of  one  of  tlie  great  lead- 
ing daily  newspapers  of  the  U.  S. 

^From  'The  Bacon-Shakspere  Controversy,  a  Judicial  Summino^- 
up,'  by  Sir  James  Plaisted  Wilde,  Baron  Penzance,  Member  of 
House  of  Peers,  etc.,  etc. 


OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON  33 

explained.  If  the  traditional  theory  is  destined  to  collapse,  it 
will  require  not  only  many  sturdy  blows,  but  also  long  and 
patient  waiting;  for  the  Stratford  deer-stealer  has  been  so 
wrapped  about  with  human  sentiment  that  foolish  vituperation 
is  meted  to  those  who  dare  to  suggest  that  his  coronation 
robes  are  a  poor  fit,  and  seem  better  adapted  to  a  bulkier 
personage."^  — (1903). 

AuTHOE  OP  '  Is  IT  Shakespeare  ?  ' 
"  In  my  opinion  we  are  not  far  from  the  time  when  our 
fellow-countrymen  and  the  English-speaking  peoples  through- 
out the  world  will  unanimously  admit  that  the  most  wonder- 
ful genius  that  ever  spoke  and  wrote  the  English  language 
was  the  man  who  combined  in  one  brain  and  produced  from 
one  brain  the  Essays  and  Philosophy  of  Francis  Bacon  and  the 
Plays,  Sonnets  and  Poems  of  William  Shakespeare — un- 
doubtedly the  greatest  miracle  of  intellect  the  world  has  ever 
seen,  and  a  most  extraordinary  termination  of  the  greatest 
literary  mystification  that  ever  passed  unchallenged  for 
nearly  three  hundred  years."  ^  — (1903). 

JOUBNAL  DES  DeBATS,  PaRIS. 

«  The  Baconian  thesis  has  up  to  this  day  been  asserted  in 
presence  of  three  successive  generations  by  able  and  most 
sincere  writers.  .  .  .  Such  a  controversy  is  therefore  not  dis- 
dainfully to  be  set  aside,  nor  a  priori  declared  unworthy  of 
consideration."—  (1903). 

Rev.  Francis  Howe  Johnson. 

"  The  main  lines  of  the  argument  for  the  hypothesis  that 
Francis  Bacon  was  the  author  of  the  plays  known  as  Shakes- 
peare's are  to  me  most  reasonable. 

"  First.  To  believe  that  the  man,  William  Shakspere,  as 
known  by  the  historical  data  that  have  come  down  to  us, 

1  In  letter  to  ug. 

'  From  '  Ib  it  Shakespeare  ?  '  p.  335. 


34  OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON 

was  the  author  of  these  plays,  seems  to  me  little  short  of 
monstrous. 

'■'■Second.  If  we  reject  this  popular  tradition  and  are  not 
satisfied  in  the  vagueness  of  an  unknown  authorship,  we 
must,  if  we  can,  fix  upon  some  contemporary  who  had  a 
mind  deep  enough,  wide  enough,  trained  in  all  the  wisdom 
of  the  time,  a  man  great  enough,  both  as  Philosopher  and 
Poet,  to  make  the  hypothesis  that  he  was  their  author  worth 
while. 

"  Third.     Francis  Bacon  was  such  a  man. 

"  Fourth.  There  are  good  and  sufficient  reasons  why,  if  he 
wrote  the  Plays,  he  should  have  wished  to  keep  his  author- 
ship a  profound  secret."  * —  (1904). 

Judge  Arthur  A.  Putnam.. 
"  Perhaps  in  the  whole  history  of  literature  there  has  not 
been  an  instance  more  notable  of  rank  unreason  than  the 
persistency,  not  to  say  infuriated  stubborness,  with  which 
intelligent  men,  in  the  blazing  light  of  improbabilities,  adhere 
to  the  idea  of  the  unlettered,  penurious,  and  litigious  Shaks- 
pere,  who  was  never  known  to  own  a  book,  or  write  a 
sentence,  or  attend  a  school,  being  the  author  of  the  greatest 
literary  works  of  all  time."  ^ — (1904), 

J.  Warrbn  Keifer.  ^ 
"  I  cannot  accord  it  to  him  who,  though  rich,  did  not 
educate  his  children,  and  who,  though  he  sought  fame  through 
a  coat-of-arms  claimed  to  have  been  earned  by  the  valor  of 
his  great-grandfather,  nowhere,  not  even  in  his  last  will  and 
testament,  claimed  the  fame  of  authorship, —  such  author- 
ship,—  and  whose  sole  posthumous  anxiety  centred  on  his 
dust  and  bones  remaining  undisturbed  in  the  chancel  of 
Stratford  church."  *—(  1904). 

^  Author  of  the  learned  work,  '  Is  it  Reality? '   Andover,  Mass. 
^  In  letter  to  us. 

*  Formerly  Speaker  of  the  National  House  of  Representatives, 
Washington,  D.  C. 

*  From  the  Open  Court,  Feb.  1904. 


OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON.  35 

George  Mooke. 
"  You  ask  me  for  the  story  of  my  conversion  to  the 
Baconian  theory.  Well,  I  believe  all  conversions  are  very 
much  like  Saint  Paul's.  An  idea  comes  upon  one  suddenly, 
on  the  road  to  Damascus.  The  first  time  I  heard  Bacon 
mentioned  as  the  possible  author  of  the  Plays  and  Poems, 
the  idea  lit  up  in  my  brain,  and  I  felt  certain  that  it  could 
not  have  been  the  mummer.  Nature's  rhythms  seem  ir- 
regular, but  irregular  things  only  seem  irregular  because  we 
do  not  know  them  sufficiently;  they  conform  to  a  law,  and 
that  a  mummer  should  have  written  the  plays  seemed  to  me  to 
run  counter  to  every  rhythm.  The  moment  it  was  suggested 
that  Bacon  had  written  them,  I  felt  as  many  must  have  felt 
when  they  heard  for  the  first  time  that  the  earth  goes  round 
the  sun.  Things  began  to  get  concentric  again ;  hitherto 
they  had  all  been  eccentric.  The  first  book  I  read  was  Judge 
Webb's,  a  good  book  for  beginners,  but  when  one  knows  the 
main  lines  of  the  argument  there  are  no  books  but  yours. 
Your  books  are  always  upon  my  table,  and  I  constantly  refer 
to  them,  and  they  give  me  the  greatest  pleasure.  You  ad- 
vance arguments  that  are  very  striking,  and  I  should  like  to 
point  out  those  that  have  influenced  me,  but  if  I  did  so,  I 
should  be  attaching  too  much  importance  to  a  link.  No  one 
argument  is  conclusive  ;  it  is  the  mass  of  evidence,  and  I  am 
sure  you  will  agree  with  me  on  this  point." ^ —  (1904). 

Hon.  William  Waldorf  Astor. 

"  You  ask  my  opinion,  in  a  few  words,  upon  the  Bacon- 
Shakspere  controversy,  which  has  been  a  study  of  immense 
interest  to  me  for  nearly  twenty  years.  In  examining  a 
problem  of  such  importance  to  English  literature  as  the 
anthorship  of  the  plays  attributed  to  Shakspere  one  can 
hardly  use  too  great  deliberation.  I  felt  this  so  strongly  that 
it  was  only  after  about  ten  years'  reading  and  reflection  that 
I  became  a  convinced  Baconian.     I  have  been  brought  to 


^  In  letter  to  ua. 


2,6  OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON. 

this  conclusion  mainly  by  the  impossibility  of  reconciling 
the  facts  we  know  concerning  the  life  of  the  man  of  Stratford 
with  the  technical  and  universal  knowledge  inherent  in  the 
plays." '— Cliveden  (1904). 

Appleton  Morgan,  LL.  D. 

"  What  I  have  never  been  able  to  find  out  is,  why  the 
•  Higher  Criticism  '  (i.  e,,  the  authorship  question)  of  Shakes- 
peare is  '  ridiculous,'  'preposterous,'  etc.,  etc.,  as  every  book- 
reviewer  and  college  professor  assures  us  that  it  is.  It  may 
be  most  highly  improbable  that  two  burglaries  in  different 
localities  were  committed  by  the  same  burglar;  but  if  the 
measurements  of  the  foot-prints  in  both  cases  are  identical, 
the  theory  that  both  were  committed  by  the  same  burglar 
may  be  —  such  a  theory  is  —  neither  *  ridiculous  '  nor  '  pre- 
posterous.' 

"  If  these  gentlemen  claim,  later  on,  that  they  denied  the 
whole  proposition  simply  to  bring  out  the  facts,  I  should, 
however,  highly  approve  of  their  course."  - —  (1904). 

Charles  F.  Libby.  ^ 
"  In  the  face  of  all  the  facts  you  have  presented,  I  am  un- 
able to  believe  that  the  man  Shakspere  could  have  written 
these  master-pieces,  but  on  the  contrary  find  much  to  con- 
firm the  theory  that  Bacon  did.'"'  —  (1904). 

GuiLLADME    ApOLLINAIRE. 

"On  the  23rd  April,  1616,  there  died  an  obscure  English 
actor,  named  Shekspere,  to  whom,  on  account  of  the  similar- 
ity of  the  names,  people  afterwards  attributed  the  works  of  a 


^  In  letter  to  us. 

^  In  letter  to  us.  President  of  the  New  York  Shakespeare 
Society;  author  of  'Venus  and  Adonis,'  a  study  in  the  Warwick- 
shire dialect;  The  Shakespearean  Myth;  Some  Shakespearean 
Commentators;  The  Law  of  Literature;  Editor  of  the  Bankside 
iJhakespeare,  etc. 

2  Portland,  Maine. 


OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON  2>1 

more    illustrious  unknown,   who   signed   himself   '  William 
Shakespeare.'  "  ^  —  (1904). 

George  F,  Talbot.^ 
*'  Since  the  discussion  has  been  taken  up  by  such  com- 
petent disputants  as  yourself,  so  thoroughly  versed  as  you 
are  in  the  critical  examination  of  evidence,  so  conversant 
with  the  whole  compass  of  classical  and  historic  literature 
and  legend  upon  which  the  writer  of  the  Shakespearean 
dramas  must  have  fed  his  creative  imagination,  so  qualified 
by  a  logical  and  judicial  mind,  the  volunteer  counsel  on  the 
other  side,  who  have  put  more  passion  than  reason  in  their 
arguments,  and  seem  more  satisfied  that  the  crowd  is  with 
them  than  they  are  with  the  strength  of  their  case,  might  as 
well  abandon  their  line  of  defence,  which  has  been  to  accuse 
you  of  being  half-educated,  cranky  and  insane.  .  .  .  The 
personage  to  whom  you  assign  the  just  fame  of  these  marvel- 
ous productions  seems  to  have  been  in  every  way  born, 
educated  and  equipped  for  such  a  work.  He  had  the 
requisite  learning,  the  speculative  aptitude  and  habit,  the 
rhetorical  skill  and  poetic  feeling  that  the  most  cursory 
reading  discloses  as  the  everywhere  dominant  tone  in  this 
grandest  diapason  of  human  speech."  —  (1904.) 

W.  H.  W. 

"  This  seat,  No.  33,  summing  up  to  seven,  should  bring 
good  fortune.  I  am  pleased  to  have  seen  your  work-table 
in  this  great  library.  Now  I  can  picture  you  at  work  with  a 
proper  background  to  my  picture.  Some  day  the  window 
through  which  light  streamed  upon  your  illuminating  page 
will  be  treasured  with  its  golden  glass  commemorating  your 
achievements,  and  the  alcove  behind  the  window  will  be 
dedicated  to  the  literature  which  has  brought  back  to  Francis, 
Lord  Verulam,  his  own  divine  poems."  ^ 

1  Original:  "  Le  23  avril  1616  mourait  un  obscur  acteur  anglais 
nomme  Shekspere,  auquel,  a,  cause  de  la  similitude  des  noma,  on 
attribua  plus  tard  les  ceuvres  d'un  inconnu  plus  illustre  qui  signaifc 
William  Shakespeare."     L'eukop^en,  21,  1.  04 

^Author  and  retired  lawyer,  Portland,  Me. 

2  Barton  Room  of  the  Boston  (Mass.)  Public  Library. 


431SS6 


38  OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON, 

On  the  Other  Side. 

We  now  cite  some  opinions,  as  representative  in  character 
as  possible,  on  the  other  side.  They  will  also  serve  as  ma- 
terials for  the  history  of  this  controversy,  when  the  history 
shall  be  written. 

Thomas  Caelyle.i 

"  There  is  not  the  least  possibility  of  truth  in  the  notion 
Miss  Delia  Bacon  has  taken  up  ;  the  hope  of  ever  proving  it, 
or  finding  the  least  document  that  countenances  it  is  equal  to 
that  of  vanquishing  the  wind-mills  by  stroke  of  lance. 

"  Lord  Bacon  could  as  easily  have  created  this  planet  as 
he  could  have  written  'Hamlet.'  " —  (1853). 

Blackwood's  Edinburgh  Magazine. 

"It  proves  an  unlimited  power  of  credulity  among  the 
class  to  which  its  writer  belongs,  and  throws  some  light  upon 
that  extraordinary  mental  process  by  which  men  of  a  crotch- 
ety turn  of  mind  can  set  up  pure  unreason  in  the  plac  of 
plain  truth ;  but  it  proves  nothing  whatever  about  Francis 
Bacon,  nor  throws  the  smallest  glimmer  of  illumination  on 
those  mysterious  productions  called  Shakespeare's  Plays."  ^ 
—  (1856). 

Rev.  Leonard  Bacon. 

"The  great  world  does  not  care  a  sixpence  who  wrote 
'Hamlet.'"  =^—(1856). 

*  Carlyle's  judgmeut  of  a  man's  character  aud  abilities  was  often 
Tcry  eccentric,  as  the  following  specimens  will  show:  "Keats  is 
'a  curried  dead  dog';  Shelley,  'a  ghastly  object';  Coleridge,  'a 
puffy,  obstructed-looking  old  man,  talking  in  a  maudlin  sleep  an 
infinite  deal  of  nothing' ;  Lamb,  '  a  puir  cratur,  with  a  thin  streak 
of  cockney-wit,  nothing  humorous  but  his  dress  ' ;  Walter  Scott,  '  a 
toothless  retailer  of  old  wives'  fables  ' ;  Sir  Robert  Peel,  '  a  plausible 
-fox  ' ;  Lord  Melbourne,  '  a  monkey  ' ;  Brougham,  '  an  eternal 
grinder  of  commonplace';  J.  W.  Crocker,  'an  unhanged  hound'; 
Lord  John  Russell,  'a  turnspit  of  good  pedigree';  Wordsworth, 
'stoopiug  to  extract  a  spiritual  catsup  from  mushrooms  that  were 
little  better  than  toadstools.'  "     Notes  atid  Queries,  1895. 

^  Nearly  fifty  years  have  elapsed  since  the  above  was  written,  and 
yet  the  plays  are  to  all  intents  and  purposes  as  "  mysterious  "  now 
as  ever.  The  key  to  them  is  in  Bacon's  works,  as  our  readers  will 
soon  perceive  and  acknowledge. 

3  In  a  letter  to  his  sister  in  England,  dissuading  her  from  her  en- 
terprise. 


OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON,  39 

North  American  Review. 
"  There  is  in  Miss  Bacon's  work  a  spirit  of  subtile  analysis, 
a  deep  moral  insight,  and  a  penetrating  research  which, 
separated  from  the  monomania  of  her  particular  theory,  en- 
lists our  admiration,  and  is  adapted  to  throw  much  light  upon 
Shakespeare's  genius.  It  makes  us  feel  that  there  are  in 
him  vast  depths  of  thought  and  presentations  of  great  human 
and  social  laws  of  the  development  of  which,  as  yet,  we  have 
scarcely  dreamed."^ — (1857). 

George  H.  Townsend. 
"  The  Baconians  are  assailants  of  genius ;  they  are  hope- 
lessly ignorant,  and  their  very  souls  shudder  at  every  kind 
of  mental  superiority.  .  .  .  Dirty  work  requires  its  peculiar 
instruments;  none  more  readily  attack  the  fame  of  others 
than  those  who  have  no  reputation  of  their  own  to  lose.  .  .  . 
Have  we  no  literary  police  ?  Oh,  for  an  hour  with  the  giant 
Christopher  North  !  -  Oh,  for  some  swashing  blows  from  his 
rhetorical  cudgel  to  crush  this  fungus !  Another,  and  per- 
haps a  better  plan  would  be,  to  gibbet  the  offenders." — 
(1857). 

'  The  Athen^um.' 
"  Our  readers  heard  two  or  three  years  ago  that  an  Amer- 
ican lady  had  announced  in  the  intellectual  city  of  New  York 
a  discovery  that  Will  the  Jester  was  a  rogue  strutting  through 
space  in  his  master's  clothes.  They  enjoyed  the  story,  and 
they  laughed  still  more  when,  about  a  year  ago,  the  un- 
memoried'^  W.  H.  Smith  reproduced  the  American  hallucina- 
tion as  his  own,  in  a  ponderous  letter  to  Lord  Ellsmere.     But 

^  A  remarkable  prophecy,  yet  to  be  fulfilled. 

2  Christopher  North  was,  to  be  suie,  a  great  critic,  but  he  did  not 
hesitate  to  call  Tennyson,  on  the  appearance  of  the  first  book  of 
Tennyson's  poems,  an  owl,  and  to  say,  "  All  that  he  wants  is  to  be 
phot,  stuffed,  and  stuck  in  a  glass  case,  to  be  made  immortal  in  a 
museum." 

3  Mr.  Smith  is  not  "  unmemoried,"  but,  it  is  safe  to  say,  the 
author  of  this  gratuitous  and  disgraceful  insult  to  his  revered 
memory  will  be.     None  but  ghouls  insult  the  dead. 


40  OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON. 

the  jest  is  now  stale.     Yesterday's  champagne  is  detestable. 
The  rocket  is  burnt,  and  only  a  singed  stick  remains. 

"  Mr.  Smith  denies  the  appropriation  of  Miss  Delia  Bacon's 
theory,  and  assures  us  that  he  never  heard  the  name  of  Miss 
Bacon  until  Sept.,  1856.  The  question  may  be  of  slight  im- 
portance which  of  two  given  individuals  first  conceived  a 
crazy  notion." — (1857). 

Bishop  Wordsworth. 
"  It  has  been  a  frequent  subject  of  complaint  that  so  little 
has  come  down  to  us  respecting  our  poet's  life.  For  my 
part,  I  am  inclined  to  doubt  whether  it  would  be  desirable 
for  us  to  be  moi-e  fully  informed  concerning  it  than  we 
actually  are." i—(  1864). 

Alphonse  de  Lama-rtine. 
"Shakspere's  'Romeo  and  Juliet'  explains  to  us  the  en- 
thusiasm  that  the  poor  holder  of   horses  at  the  door  of  a 
theatre  has   inspired  in  the   most   cultivated  nation  of   the 
universe."^ —  (1865). 

James  Speddixg. 
"  I  believe  that  the  author  of  the  Plays,  published  in  1623, 
was  a  man  called  William  Shakespeare.  It  was  believed  by 
those  who  had  the  best  means  of  knowing,  and  I  know  noth- 
ing which  should  lead  me  to  doubt  it.  ...  I  doubt  whether 
there  are  five  lines  together  to  be  found  in  Bacon  which 
could  be  mistaken  for  Shakespeare,  or  five  lines  in  Shakes- 
peare which  could  be  mistaken  for  Bacon,  by  one  who  was 
familiar  with  the  several  styles  and  practiced  in  such  obser- 
vation." ^  (1867). 

^  We  are  sorry  to  note  that  Dr.  H.  H.  Furness,  our  variorum 
editor  of  Shake-speare,  shares  this  extraordinary  opinion  with  the 
Bishop.  He  even  goes  farther  and  expresses  the  hope  that  we  may 
never  learn  anything  more  than  we  now  know  of  Shakspere  per- 
sonally. How  can  this  attitude  of  mind  be  explained  consist- 
ently with  one's  self-respect? 

^  From  Shakespeare  et  son  Oeuvres, 

2  In  letter  to  Hon.  Nathaniel  Holmes,  published  in  Holmes' 
♦Authorship  of  Shakespeare,'  1887,  pp.  616-17. 

Mr.  Spedding  is  chiefly  and  favorably  known  as  the  biographer 


OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON  41 

Harper's  New  Monthly  Magazine. 

«  That  the  player  was  the  author  of  these  dramas  is  as  well 

fixed  as  any  fact  in  literary  history  can  be." —  (1867). 

and  editor  of  Francis  Bacon.  He  devoted  nearly  forty  years  of  his 
life  to  this  special  work.  He  seems  also  to  have  been  well  ac- 
quainted with  Shakespeare.  It  must  be  admitted,  then,  that  by 
training,  at  least,  he  was  the  best  fitted  man  of  recent  times  to  give 
an  authoritative  opinion  on  the  subject  in  controversy.  And  he 
did  give  it  without  the  slightest  qualification  against  us  before  his 
death. 

The  world,  however,  is  too  full  of  just  such  instances  of  extra- 
ordinary self-deception  to  warrant  us,  after  a  thorough  inquiry  of 
our  own,  to  surrender  our  conviction  to  his.  The  considerations 
he  advances  in  his  support  are  extremely  unsatisfactory.  For  ex- 
ample, in  this  matter  of  style  (one  of  two  points  only  we  have  space 
now  to  consider),  we  are  reasonably  certain  that  he  was  in  error, 
and  we  think  we  can  make  our  readers  equally  certain  of  the  error 
also.  To  this  end  we  submit  herein  five  passages  from  each  of  the 
two  sets  of  works,  and  challenge  anybody  to  apportion  them  to 
their  respective  authors  simply  on  grounds  of  style : 

"  Contrary  is  it  with  hypocrites  and  impostors,  for  they  in  the 
church  and  before  the  people  set  themselves  on  fire  and  are  carried, 
as  it  were,  out  of  themselves,  and,  becoming  as  men  inspired  with 
holy  furies,  they  set  heaven  and  earth  together." 

"  It  is  a  wonderful  thing  to  see  the  semblable  coherence  of  his 
men's  spirits  and  his  own  ;  they,  by  observing  him,  do  bear  them- 
selves like  foolish  justices;  he,  by  conversing  with  them,  is  turned 
into  a  justice  like  serving  man.  ...  It  is  certain  that  either  wis© 
bearing  or  ignorant  carriage  is  caught  as  men  take  diseases,  one  of 
another;  therefore,  let  men  take  heed  of  their  company." 

"I  have  thought  that  some  of  Nature's  journeymen  had  made 
men,  and  not  made  them  well ;  they  imitated  humanity  so  abom- 
inably." 

"Novelty  only  is  in  request;  it  is  as  dangerous  to  be  aged  in  any 
kind  of  course  as  it  is  virtuous  to  be  constant  in  any  undertaking. 
There  is  scarce  truth  enough  alive  to  make  societies  secure,  but 
gecurity  enough  to  make  fellowship  accursed." 

"  Faces  are  but  a  gallery  of  pictures,  and  talk  but  a  tinkling 
cymbal,  where  there  is  no  love." 

"  Gentle  whispers,  which  from  more  ancient  traditions  came  at 
length  into  the  flutes  and  trumpets  of  the  Greeks." 

"Thus  hast  thou  hanged  our  life  on  brittle  pins, 
To  let  us  know  it  will  not  bear  our  sins." 

"  If  money  go  before,  all  ways  do  lie  open." 

"  It  may  be  you  will  do  posterity  good,  if,  out  of  the  carcass  of 
dead  and  rotten  greatness,  as  out  of  Samson's  lion,  there  be  honey 
gathered  for  future  times." 

"  False  of  heart,  light  of  ear,  bloody  of  hand;  hog  in  sloth,  fox 
in  stealth,  wolf  in  greediness,  dog  in  madness,  lion  in  prey." 

Our  conclusion  is,  that  when  our  two  authors  are  not  on  the 
poetical  tripod,  their  respective  literary  styles  are  indistinguish- 
able. 

Mr.  Spedding  had  one  serious  limitation  for  the  work  to  which 


42  OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON. 

S.    A.    AlXlBONE. 

*'  1  have  earned  the  right  by  hard  labor  to  assert  that  there 
is  not  in  the  1100  pages  of  Delia  Bacon  and  Judge  Holmes 
the  shadow  of  a  shade  of  an  argument  to  support  their  wild 
and  most  absurd  hypothesis."  ^  —  (1871). 

Prof.  Hiram  Corson,  - 
"  That  William  Shakspere  of  Stratford-upon-Avon,  Gent., 
was  the  author  of  these  dramas  every  one  who  is  willing  to 
accept  testimony  thereianto  pertaining,  equally  strong  and 
and  conclusive  as  the  testimony  that  is  requisite  in  a  civilized 
court  of  justice  to  hang  a  man,  can  find  such  testimony  in 
abundance  in  the  volume  before  us." —  (1875). 

Scribnkr's  Monthly  Magazine. 
"  To  admit  the  Baconian  theory  of  Shakespeare,  except  as 
a  piece  of  ingenious  pleasailtry,  demands  a  brain  so  addled 
with   theory  as  to  be  incapable  of   literary  judgment,  or  a 
(capacity  for  credulity  not  given  to  mere  commonplace  mor- 
tals." —  (1875). 

F.    J.    FURNIVALL. 

"The  idea  of  Lord  Bacon's  having   written    Shakspere's 


lie  devoted  his  life;  lie  never  could  understand  Bacon  when  Bacon 
made  any  personal  reference  to  poetry  or  the  drama.    For  examples : 

Bacon  wrote  a  letter  to  Sir  John  Davies,  begging  a  favor,  and 
closing  with  the  entreaty,  "  be  good  to  concealed  poets;"  Spedding 
eays  of  it,  "  the  allusion  to  'concealed  poets'  I  cannot  understand." 

Bacon  kept  a  commonplace  book,  tilled  with  words,  phrases  and 
sentences,  applicable  (many  of  them)  to  dialogue  only,  though  he 
wrote  no  known  dialogues ;  Spedding  cites  hundreds  of  these  entries, 
and  then  "  wonders  "  lor  what  purpose  they  were  written. 

Bacon  announced  his  method  of  interpreting  nature  (human 
nature)  as  a  secret,  new  to  the  world  and  not  to  be  disclosed  for 
several  generations;  Spedding  acknowledges  the  existence  of  the 
secret  and  discusses  it,  but  in  the  end  confesses  his  ignorance  of 
what  it  means. 

Bacon  says  that  any  person,  undertaking  to  make  use  of  his  new 
method,  must  wear  a  mask  ;  Spedding  says,  "  I  cannot  say  that  I 
clearly  understand  the  sentence;  but  I  think  it  must  refer  to  the 
necessity  of  using  popular  ideas  for  popular  purposes  [!]." 

^  From  his  'Dictionary  of  Authors,'  p.  2048. 

2 Cornell  University. 


OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON.  43 

plays  can  be  entertained  only  by  folk  who  know  nothing 
whatever  of  either  writer,  or  are  crackt,  or  who  enjoy  the 
paradox  or  joke.  ...  I  doubt  whether  any  go  idiotic  sug- 
gestion had  ever  been  made  before,  or  will  ever  be  made 
again,  with  regard  to  either  Bacon  or  Shakspere.  The  tom- 
foolery of  it  is  infinite."!—  (1877), 

"  Americans  trained  in  English  literature  are  as  likely  to 
hold  that  the  world  was  made  yesterday  by  a  monkey  out  ol 
three  pounds  of  putty  as  they  are  to  maintain  that  Bacon 
wrote  Shakspere's  works."  ^ 

"  Providence  is  merciful,  and  the  U.  S.  folk  are  tolerant ; 
you'd  have  been  strung  up  on  the  nearest  lamp-post  else."  * 

James  Freeman  Clarke. 
*'  When  we  ask  whether  it  would  have  been  easier  for  tht 
author  of  the  philosophy  to  have  composed  the  drama,  or  the 
dramatic  poet  to  have  written  the  philosophy,  the  answer 
will  depend  upon  which  is  the  greater  of  the  two.  The 
greater  includes  the  less,  but  the  less  cannot  include  tnte 
greater.  .  .  .  Great  as  are  the  thoughts  of  the  Novum 
Organum,  they  are  inferior  to  that  world  of  thought  which  is 
in  the  drama.  We  can  easily  conceive  that  Shakespeare, 
having  produced  in  his  prime  the  wonders  and  glories  of  the 
plays,  should  in  his  after  leisure  have  developed  the  leading 
ideas  of  the  Baconian  philosophy.  But  it  is  difficult  to 
imagine  that  Bacon,  while  devoting  his  main  strength  to 
politics,  to  law,  to  philosophy,  should  have,  as  a  mere  pas- 
time of  his  leisure,  produced  in  his  idle  moments  the  greatest 
intellectual  work  ever  done  on  earth."* —  (1881). 

!  From  the  Preface  to  '  The  Leopold  Shakspere,'  p.  cxxviii. 

2  From  the  Arena  Magazine,  Boston,  Mass. 

'  In  letter  to  us. 

*  From  the  North  American  Review.  Mr.  Clarke  is  said  to  have 
regretted  before  his  death  the  writing  of  this  article,  in  which 
Bacon's  philosophical  works  are  tentatively  ascribed  to  Shakes- 
peare. And  yet  Shake-speare  did  write  the  Novum  Or^^anmn,  in 
the  same  sense  as  We  say  that  George  Eliot  wrote  Adam  Bede. 
Mr.  Clarke  simply  builded  better  than  he  knew,  for  he  saw  identity 
without  fully  apprehending  what  it  meant. 


44  OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON. 

Pbof.  Paul  Staffer. 
"The  famous  paradox,  brought  forward  from  time  to  time 
by  some  lunatic."*—  (1880). 

Eduard  Engel. 

"  The  Bacon  craze  has  obtained  so  wide  a  circulation  that 
it  must  not  at  the  present  time  be  passed  over  with  the  silence 
of  disgust  and  contempt;  but  the  American  champions  of  the 
imposture,  who  have  followed  in  Delia  Bacon's  wake,  shall 
not  receive  the  honor  [!]  of  personal  mention  here. 

"  So  far  as  an  approach  to  coherent  opinion  can  be  got  out 
of  this  many-voiced  fools'  chorus,  where  each  leading  fool 
extols  his  own  pet  crotchet,  we  may  characterize  those  who 
promote  this  stupidity,  and  those  who  agree  with  them,  as 
follows  :  orthodox-minded  lunatics,  distinguished  from  such 
as  tenant  asylums  in  that  they  are  still  at  large ;  secondly, 
indolent  ignoramuses  ;  .  .  .  and  thirdly,  a  crew  of  unreason- 
ing news-mongers  and  purveyors  of  social  rubbish.  People 
of  this  brain-sick  habit,  maniacs,  are  as  hard  to  convince 
of  their  error  as  they  who  imagine  themselves  to  be  God 
Almighty,  or  the  Emperor  of  China,  or  the  Pope."  ^  — 
(1883). 

Edwin  A.  Abbott. 
"  The  Promus  seems  to  render  it  highly  probable,  if  not 
absolutely  certain,  that  Francis  Bacon  in  the  year  1594  had 
either  heard  or  read  Shakespeare's  Romeo  zxi^  Juliet.  Let  the 
reader  turn  to  the  passage  in  that  play  where  Friar  Law- 
rence lectures  Romeo  on  too  early  rising,  and  note  the 
italicised  words : 

'  Bvit  where  unbruised  youth  with  unstuff'd  brain 
Doth  couch  his  limbs,  there  go/den  sleep  doth  reign, 
Therefore  thy  earliness  doth  me  assuie 
Thou  art  up-roused  by  some  distemperature.'  ii.  3,  40. 

Now  let  him  turn  to  entries  1207  and  1215  in  the  following 

^  Professor  at  the  Faculte  des  Lettres  of  Grenoble,  France. 

2  From  his  history  of  English  Literature,  p.  159.  We  may  gauge 
Herr  Engel's  capacity  to  understand  the  literaiy  men  of  England 
by  what  he  says  of  Bacon  :  "Of  all  the  better-known  writers  of  the 
sixteenth  century,  even  prose  writers,  Bacon  was  the  most  prosaic, 


OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON  45 

pages,  and  he  will  find  that  Bacon,  among  a  number  of 
phrases  relating  to  early  rising,  has  these  words,  almost  con- 
secutively, 'golden  sleep'  and  <  uprouse.'  One  of  these 
entries  would  prove  little  or  nothing ;  but  any  one  accustomed 
to  evidence  will  perceive  that  t7vo  of  these  entries  constitute 
a  coincidence  amounting  almost  to  a  demonstration  that 
either  (1)  Bacon  and  Shakespeare  borrowed  from  some  com- 
mon and  at  present  unknown  source;  or  (2)  one  of  the  two 
borrowed  from  the  other."  ^  —  (1883). 

Richard  Gkant  White. 

"None  the  less  it  is  a  lunacy,  which  should  be  treated  with 
all  the  skill  and  the  tenderness  which  modern  medical  science 
and  humanity  has  developed.  Proper  retreats  should  be 
provided,  and  ambulances  kept  ready  with  horses  harnessed, 
and  when  symptoms  of  the  Bacon-Shakspere  craze  manifest 
themselves,  the  patient  should  be  immediately  carried  off  to 
an  asylum,  furnished  with  pens,  ink  and  paper,  a  copy  of 
Bacon's  works,  one  of  the  Shakespeare  Plays,  and  one  of 
Mrs.  Cowden  Clarke's  Concordance  ;  and  the  literary  results 
should  be  received  for  publication  with  deference,  and  then 
—  committed  to  the  flames.  In  this  way  the  innocent  victims 
of  the  malady  might  be  soothed  and  tranquilized,  and  the 
world  protected  against  the  debilitating  influence  of  tomes 
of  tedious  twaddle."  2—  (1886). 

the  most  insipid,  and  the  most  pedantic.  There  are  many  things 
that  are  clever  in  Bacon's  Essays,  .  .  .  but,  with  a  few  sensible 
aphorisms,  an  incomparably  greater  number  of  common-places  and 
platitudes." 

'  Unfortunately  for  this  clever  argument  the  word  up-rouse  is 
not  found  in  the  Promus. 

2  The  correct  measure  of  Mr.  White's  abilities  as  a  critic  may  be 
found  in  his  book  entitled  "  Shakspere  Studies,"  containing  not 
only  what  is  cited  above,  but  also  the  following:  "  That  Shakspere 
did  his  work  with  no  other  purpose  whatever,  moral,  philosophic, 
artistic,  literary,  than  to  make  an  attractive  play,  which  would 
bring  him  money,  should  be  constantly  borne  in  mind  (p.  20)." 

"  He  wrote  what  he  wrote  merely  to  fill  the  theatre  and  his  own 
pockets.  There  was  as  much  deliberate  purpose  in  his  breathing 
as  in  hie  play-writing  [!]  (p.  209)." 


46  OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON. 

DwiGHT  Baldwin. 
"  Does  this  prove    that    Bacon    wrote   the    plays  ?    No ; 
rather  that  he  was  a  greater,  brighter,  more  daring  and  far- 
seeing  knave  than  the  world  has  hitherto  thought  possible."  ^ 
—  (1887). 

Clement  M.  Ingleby.  ' 

"This  remarkable  controversy  is  not  without  its  uses.  It 
serves  to  call  particular  attention  to  the  existence  of  a  class 
of  minds  which,  like  Macadam's  sieves,  retain  only  those 
ingredients  that  are  unsuited  to  the  end  in  view.  .  .  . 
It  has  also  another  use.  It  incites  us  to  look  up  our 
evidences  for  Shakspere's  authorship ;  and  we  are  reminded 
how  few  and  meagre  they  are."  —  (1887). 

Prof.  Frederic  Karl  Elze. 
"  The  history  of  modern  literature  is  not  beyond  the  reach 
of  the    officiousness   and    stupidity    of   dilettanteism.     The 
so-called  Bacon  Theory  is  a  disease  of  the  pame  species  as 
table-turning."  —  (1888). 

Sir  Theodorb  Martin. 
"  From  the  belief  of  three  centuries  the  world  is  not  to  be 
shaken  by  the  fine-spun  theories  of  nobodies.''''^  —  (1888). 

1  We  take  this  opportunity  to  give  a  recent  and  in  our  opinion 
perfectly  just  estimate  of  Bacon's  personal  character: 

"An  intellect  of  the  first  rank,  which  from  boyhood  to  old  age 
had  been  steadfast  in  the  pursuit  of  truth ;  which  in  a  feeble  body 
had  been  sustained  in  vigor  by  all  the  virtues  of  prudence  and  self- 
reverence;  a  genial  nature,  winning  the  affection  and  admiration 
of  associates;  hardly  paralleled  in  the  industry  with  which  its 
energies  were  devoted  to  useful  work ;  a  soul  exceptional  among 
its  contemporaries  for  piety  and  philanthropy  —  this  man  is  rep- 
resented to  us  by  popular  writers  as  having  habitually  sold  justice 
for  money,  and  as  having  become  in  office  the  '  meanest  of  man- 
kind.' 

"  But  this  picture,  as  so  often  drawn  and  as  seemingly  fixed  in 
the  public  mind,  is  not  only  impossible,  but  also  demonstrably 
false." —  Charlton  T.  Lewis. 

^  Author  of  '  A  Century  of  Praise.' 

3  Mr.  Martin  was  knighted  by  Queen  Victoria  for  having  written 
a  life  (though  a  very  poor  one)  of  the  Prince  Consort. 


OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON.  47 

Leslie  Stephen. 
"  I  believe  all  competent  critics  would  agree  with  Pro- 
fessor Masson's  opinion  that  the  '  Shakspere-Bacon  theory ' 
is  a  mere  craze.  ...  I  should  think  it  as  easy  to  prove  that 
Mr.  Gladstone  wrote  Lord  Tennyson's  poems,  or  to  square 
the  circle."!— (1888). 

Mrs.  Charlotte  C.  Stopes. 
"The  authors  of  Shakespeare's  and  Bacon's  works  drank 
different  liquors,  and  therefore  did  not  think  alike.     The  first 
drank  nectar;  the  second,  wine  and  beer."- —  (1888). 

Mrs.  Margaret  Oliphant. 
"  The  discussion  about  Shakspere  and  Bacon  is  a  most 
elaborate  piece  of  folly  from  beginning  to  end,  quite  un- 
worthy the  consideration  of  any  reasonable  creature.  No 
such  thing  has  ever  happened  in  human  experience."  — 
(1888). 

The  'Henrt  Irving  Shakespeark.' 
"The  Baconian  lunacy.""—  (1890). 

J.  Proctor  Knott. 
The  first  day  of  December  in  the  year  of  our  Lord,  1890. 
Doe  ex  dem.  Bacon  ) 

V.  V  Ejectment. 

Shakspere  ) 

This  cause  coming  on  to  be  heard  upon  the  demurrer  to 
the  evidence,  and  the  Court,  being  now  sufficiently  advised, 
delivers  the  following  opinion  : 

The  Court  has  read  with  great  interest  the  Brief  filed  for 

!  We  wonder  whether  Mr.  Stephen  ever  read  what  we  quote  from 
Prof.  Masson  on  page  6,  ante.  It  is  worthy  of  a  second  perusal. 
Prof.  Massey  says  the  same  (page  15). 

*  From  a  periodical  devoted  to  the  liquor  interests. 

^This  characterization  of  the  Baconian  Theory  is  taken  from  a 
critique  on  'The  Tempest,'  made  by  the  editor  of  the  Henry  Irving 
Shakespeare,  in  which  Prospero  is  said  to  represent  James  1st. 
The  dramatist,  according  to  this  authority,  "  kept  his  eye  on  the 
king"  (the  wisest  fool  in  Christendom)  while  writing  the  drama. 
And  this  editor  is  an  expert  on  lunacy ! 


48  OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON. 

Plaintiff  and  does  not  hesitate  to  pronounce  it  a  most  ad- 
mirable syllabus  of  the  argument  in  that  behalf,  quite  suffi- 
cient, indeed,  to  raise  a  strong  presumption,  if  it  does  not 
fully  show,  that  the  tenant  in  possession  is  holding  without 
title.  Yet  in  view  of  the  familiar  principle  laid  down  in  the 
case  of  Doe  ex  dem.  Titmouse  V.  Goiter^  Warren's  Ten 
Thousand  a  Year,  that  the  Plaintiff  in  an  ejectment  must 
recover  on  the  strength  of  his  own  title  and  not  upon  the 
weakness  of  his  adversary's,  the  Court  is  not  prepared  to 
show  that  he  is  entitled  to  judgment  upon  the  evidence 
adduced.  Although  the  proof  shows,  almost  conclusively, 
that  defendant  is  in  without  title,  the  case,  as  made,  is 
scarcely  sufficient  to  entitle  Plaintiff  to  recover. 

The  Court  announces  this  conclusion  with  less  reluctance 
since  it  is  held,  in  the  case  cited  supra,  that  a  verdict  and 
judgment  in  this  proceeding  will  not  bar  a  subsequent  eject- 
ment between  the  same  parties  for  the  recovery  of  the 
premises  here  in  controversy. 

Demurrer  sustained  and  judgment  accordingly. 

And  now  at  this  day  come  the  parties  aforesaid  by  their 
respective  attornies,  whereupon,  all  and  singular,  the  prem- 
ises being  seen  and  by  the  Court  fully  understood  and  mature 
deliberation  being  thereupon  had,  it  appears  to  the  Court 
that  the  Evidence  herein  is  not  sufficient  in  law  to  entitle 
said  Plaintiff  to  have  and  maintain  his  said  action.  Whereof 
it  is  considered  that  the  Plaintiff  aforesaid  take  nothing  by 
reason  thereof,  but  that  he  be  in  mercy  for  his  false  clamor, 
and  that  the  defendant  go  thereof  without  day.  ^  —  (1890). 

Gen.  W.  T.  Sherman. 
"  I  am  inclined  to  believe,  with  one  of  my  friends,  that  it 
was  not  William  Shakespeare  who  wrote  the  famous  plays, 
but  another  man  of  the  same  name."^ —  (1890). 

1  Our  readers  may  be  reminded  of  the  speech,  far  famed  for  it& 
wit,  made  some  years  ago  by  Mr.  Knott  in  the  House  of  Represen- 
tatives at  Washington,  on  Duluth. 

2  In  letter  to  us. 


OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON.  49 

Bishop  Phillips  Brooks. 
"  If  Bacon  should  rise  from  the  dead  and  claim  to  be  the 
author  of  the  Plays  I  would  not  believe  him."'  —  (1891). 

Robert  C.  Winthrop. 
"  I  must  be  frank  in  saying  that  I  should  as  soon  believe 
that  Shakespeare  wrote  the  Essays  as  that  Bacon  wrote  the 
Plays."!— (1891). 

Alvey  a.  Adee.  ! 
"  I  find  in  the  Plays  countless  internal  indications  that 
they  were  revamped  or  written  by  a  theatre-manager,  and 
this  in  the  most  characteristically  Shakespearean  passages, 
like  the  'blanket  in  the  dark,'  and  a  hundred  other  stage 
allusions."  2 —(1891). 

Daniel  C.  Gilman. 
"  I  thank  you  for  sending  me  an  essay  which  it  was  so 
delightful  to  read,  even  though  I  label  it  '  extra-hazardous,' 
and  put   it   out  of   the  reach   of   the   unsophisticated."^  — 
(1891). 

Thomas  Bailey  Aldrich. 
"  Frankly,   like  every  other  argument  I  have  examined, 
sustaining  the  Bacon  delusion,  it  has  strengthened  my  con- 
viction that  Shakespeare  wrote  the  plays  and  poems  attributed 
to  him." 3— (1891). 

!  In  letter  to  us. 

2  Mr.  Adee  is  Assistant  Secretary  of  State,  "Washington,  D.  C, 
and  an  exceptionally  fine  scholar.  As  to  Shakespeare's  stagecraft, 
we  cite  two  authorities  on  the  subject  for  his  benefit: 

"The  Plays  of  Shake-speare  are  less  calculated  for  performance 
on  the  stage  than  those  of  any  other  dramatist  whatever." — Charles 
Lamb. 

"Shake-speare  is  not  a  theatrical  poet;  he  never  thought  of  the 
stage;  it  was  too  narrow  for  his  great  mind." — Goethe. 

^  In  letter  to  us.  The  book  that  had  the  honor  of  enlightening 
Mr.  Aldrich  in  this  manner  was  our  '  Bacon  vs.  Shakspere,  Brief 
for  Plaintiff.' 


50  OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON. 

Samuel  Blatchford.  ^ 
"The  settled  belief  of  the  world  in  Shakspere  is  no  more 
to  be  shaken  than  is  Niagara  to  run  upwards."  —  (1891). 

Thomas  Hughes,^  J. 
"This  court  doth  order   that  the   motion    [in   behalf  of 
Bacon]  be  refused  with  costs,  and  the  further  consideration 
of  this   action    is   reserved,  with   liberty   to   all   parties   to 
apply."  =5  — (1891). 

W.  D.  Whitney.* 
"  I  find  it  quite  impossible  to  take  seriously  the  thesis  that 
Shakespeare's  works  were  written  by  Bacon.     It  seems  to 
me  very  much  like  attempting  to  prove  that  Dicken's  works 
were  written  by  Gladstone."  —  (1891). 

Andrew  Lano. 
"  The  '  Brief '  leaves  me  entirely  convinced  that  the  author 
of  Shakespeare's  Plays  and  Poems  was  Shakespeare.  I  am 
indeed  surprised  that  you  should  think  the  author  of  the 
Plays  was  a  scholar.  The  reverse  is  patent,  I  think,  to  any 
one  acquainted  with  classical  literature."^ —  (1891). 

The  Post. 
"Ignorance,  credulity,  love  of   novelty,  and  vanity  com- 
bined, can  swallow  any  nonsense,  and  are  the  natural  victims 
of  impudent  assertion  or  hallucinated  folly."  "^  —  (1891). 

Joseph  Chamberlain. 
"  I  must  frankly  say  that  I  consider  the  theory  which  you 
sustain  only  a  specimen  of  misplaced  ingenuity,  entitled  per- 

1  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Judicial  Court  of  the  U.  S.,  in  letter  to 
us. 

2  M.  P.,  Q.  C,  Author,  and  Judge  of  the  County  Court  of  Cheshire. 
^  In  letter  to  us. 

*  Professor    of    Sanscrit    and    Comparative    Philology    in    Yale 
University. 

5  In  letter  to  us.     The  personal  implication  In  the  last  sentence 
is  quite  characteristic  of  this  writer. 

*  The  Morning  Post,  London. 


OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON  51 

haps  to  take  its  place  beside  Walpole's  Historic  Doubts  about 
Richard  III.,  and  Whately's  skepticism  as  to  the  existence  of 

the  great  Napoleon."  ^  —  (1891). 

George  J.  Romanes. 
"  The  subject  is  so  much  out  of  my  line  that  my  opinion 
is  of  no  value  concerning  it.  But  I  should  have  supposed 
that  Bacon  was  a  better  Latin  scholar  than  is  shown  by  the 
Plays,  and  also  better  acquainted  with  geography  than  to 
have  represented  Bohemia  as  having  a  sea-coast."  ^ —  (1891). 

The  '  Westminster  Review.' 
"  The  gratuitous  perversity  which  could  erase  the  greatest 
name  in  literature  is  best  treated  by  silence."  —  (1891). 

James  Bryce. 
"  We  must  not  think  it  incredible  that  two  such  geniuses 
as  the  authors  of  the  Novum  Organum  and  '  Hamlet '  should 
have  lived  at  the  same  time,  when  we  remember  that  Pericles, 
Sophocles,  Thucydides,  and  Socrates  were  contemporaries  in 
the  same  small  city."  ^ —  (1891). 

Robert  G.  Ingersoll. 

"  Francis  Bacon  was  one  of  the  most  polished  scoundrels 
of  his  age." 

"  I  believe  that  William  Shakspere  was  born  at  Stratford, 
that  his  father  and  mother  could  not  read  or  write,  and  that 
he  was  the  greatest  man  of  the  human  race."  ^  —  (1891). 

Gen.  Ellis  Spear. 
"  I  have  never  given  much  thought  to  the  matter ;  in  fact, 
I  had  been  joined  to  this  idol,  and  resented  disturbances  of 
my  belief.  I  don't  know  now  that  you  miserable  iconoclasts 
are  of  any  benefit.  It  is  hard  to  transfer  the  affectionate 
regard  one  feels  for  a  poet  to  a  man  so  mean-spirited  as 
Bacon  appears  to  have  been.     The  person  of   Shakespeare 

^  In  letter  to  us. 


52  OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON. 

has  been  almost  as  mythical  as  that  of  Homer,  and  the  more 
interesting  on  that  account."''  —  (1891). 

Prof.  Goldwin  Smith. 
"  I  think  you  will  hardly  convince  me  that  the  same  man 
could  have  written  the  '  Essay  of  Love,'  and  *  Romeo  and 
Juliet.'"  2  — (1891). 

W.  E.  H.  Lecky. 

"I  regret  that  press  of  otner  business  prevents  me  from 
discussing  in  any  detail  your  theory  that  all  of  Shakespeare's 
contemporaries  (including  the  next  greatest  dramatist  of  his 
age  and  a  crowd  of  other  dramatic  writers )  were  mistaken 
about  the  authorship  of  the  Plays,  leaving  it  for  an  American, 
250  years  after,  to  set  them  right. 

"To  be  very  frank,  this  theory  seems  to  me  one  of  the 
very  silliest  of  the  many  silly  paradoxes  of  the  time."  ^  — 
(1891). 

Edward  J.  Phelps. 

"  Shakespeai-e  is  buried  in  the  chancel  of  the  church  at 
Stratford,  and  his  bust  is  placed  in  the  same  chancel ;  why  is 
this  unusual  distinction  accorded  to  him?  He  was  of  no 
family,  never  held  any  office,  rendered  any  public  service  or 
did  anything  for  the  church  in  England. 

"  There  is  not  an  instance  in  which  any  great  and  endur- 
ing poetry  has  been  produced  by  a  person  who  would  have 
been  otherwise  known  to  the  world." 

"As  to  the  law  in  Shakspere,  there  is  not  enough  to 
qualify  an  attorney's  clerk  in  all  his  writings  put  together. "  * 
—  (1891). 

1  In  letter  to  us  from  an  esteemed  college  classmate. 

-  In  letter  to  us.  We  discuss  this  subject  elsewhere,  showing 
conclusively  by  parallels  that  of  the  fifteen  points  made  on  Love  in 
Bacon's  Essay,  every  one  of  them  is  found  in  Shakespeare.  Such 
unanimity  of  sentiment  to  the  smallest  detail,  if  not  traceable  to 
the  samesource,  is  itself  unparalleled  in  literature. 

3  In  letter  to  us. 

^  In  letter  to  us.     Mr.  Phelps  was   Law   Lecturer  at  Yale  Uni- 


OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON  53 

Alfred  Tennyson. 
"I  have  just  had  a  letter  from  a  man  who  wants  my 
opinion  as  to  whether  Shakspere's  plays  were  written  by 
Bacon.  I  feel  inclined  to  write  back,  '  Sir,  don't  be  a  fool.' 
The  way  in  which  Bacon  speaks  of  love  would  be  enough  to 
prove  that  he  was  not  Shakespeare :  '  I  know  not  how,  but 
martial  men  are  given  to  love  ;  I  think  it  is  but  as  they  are 
given  to  wine ;  for  perils  commonly  ask  to  be  paid  in 
pleasures.'  How  could  a  man  with  such  an  idea  of  love  write 
'  Romeo  and  Juliet '  ?  "  ^  —  (1892). 

George  Saintsbury. 
"The  Montaigne-Bacon  craze  is  even  more  demonstrably 
preposterous  than  the  Shacouian." —  (1892). 

versity,  U.  S.  Minister  to  the  Court  of  St.  James,  etc.     As  above 
quoted,  be  touches  upon  three  points: 

1.  As  to  Shakspere's  burial.  Shakspere  was  buried  iu  the 
chancel  of  the  church  because  the  law  gave  that  privilege  to  all 
owners  of  tithes;  Shakspere  was  such  owner. 

2.  As  to  poets  in  general.  We  wonder  if  Mr.  Phelps  had  ever 
heard  of  Milton,  or  Voltaire,  or  Goethe,  or  Poe';* 

3.  As  to  law  in  the  plays.  Chief  Justice  Campbell  of  England, 
writing  before  this  controversy  began,  said  that  "  to  Shakespeare's 
law,  lavishly  as  he  propounds  it,  there  can  be  neither  demurrer, 
nor  bill  of  exception,  nor  writ  of  error,"  and  that  no  one,  without 
deep  exceptional  knowledge  of  legal  principles,  can  even  now 
understand  all  of  it.  Able  lawyers,  like  Mr.  Furnivall,  Mr.  T.  S. 
E.  Dixon,  Dr.  Appleton  Morgan  and  many  others,  on  both  sides  of 
the  authorship  question,  fully  accept  Justice  Campbell's  statement 
as  true ;  how.  then,  could  the  plays  have  been  written  by  a  man 
who,  it  is  admitted  ou  all  sides,  had  never  studied  law,  whose 
father  and  mother  could  not  read  or  write,  whose  daughters  were 
also  grossly  illiterate,  and  who  himself  never  wrote  a  letter,  never 
received  one,  or,  so  far  as  we  know  or  can  ascertain,  formed  with 
his  pen  more  than  thirteen  letters  of  the  alphabet? 

^  Here  is  the  identical  sentiment  in  Shakespeare: 

"  We  are  soldiers, 
And  may  that  soldier  a  mere  recreant  prove 
That  means  not,  hath  not,  or  is  not  in  love." 

Troilui  and  Cressida,  I.  j. 
Sir  Henry  Irving  tells  the  following  story :  A  guest  of  Mr. 
Tennyson  once  broached  to  him  the  subject  of  the  authorship  of 
Shakespeare,  and  mentioned  some  arguments  in  its  favor.  Mr. 
Tennyson  arose  and  abruptly  left  the  room,  saying,  "  I  can't  listen 
to  you, — you,  who  would  pluck  the  laurels  from  the  brow  of  the 
dead  Christ."  Sir  Henry  sees  no  impropriety  in  this  shocking 
speech.  We  are  reminded  of  the  reply  so  frequently  made  in  the 
United  States  fifty  years  ago  to  any  one  urging  the  abolition  of 
slavery:  "  What!  do  you  want  your  daughter  to  marry  a  nigger?  " 


54  OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON. 


HENRy  George. 
"  Nothing  but  perversity  can  attribute  the  Plays  to  Bacon. 
If  there  is  any  phrase  that  will  soimdingly  declare  the  allega- 
tion preposterously  false,  and  the  'allegators'  wanton  and 
pestilent  disturbers,  record  it  as  my  verdict  in  the  case."  ^  — 
(1893). 

Edmund  C.  Stedman. 
"The    instinct    of    a   scholar    is   against    the    Baconian 
theory."  2 —(1893). 

William  Winter. 
"  Effrontery  was  to  be  expected  from   the  advocates  of 
the  preposterous  Bacon  Theory."^ —  (1893). 

Marquess  of  Lorne. 
"  Bacon  may  have  left  a  mark,  here  and  there,  and  the 
allusions  to  *  hang  hog '  and  to  St.  Albans  may  speak  of  him ; 
but  some  threads  do  not  make  a  garment,  and  the  garment 
all  know  [!]  to  be  of  Shakspere's  weaving."* —  (1893). 

'  In  the  Arena  Magazine,  Boston,  Mass. 

2  That  is,  the  instinct  of  a  scholar  is  in  favor  of  one  who,  it  is 
claimed  by  his  advocates,  vpas  no  scholar. 

3  Effrontery  ?  How  can  a  charge  of  effrontery  or  impudence  lie 
against  us  in  this  discussion?  Obviously,  on  the  ground  only  that 
our  friends,  the  Shakspereans,  are  professional  scholars  and, 
therefore,  have  an  exclusive  right  to  the  subject.  But  have  they 
such  an  exclusive  right?  We  quote  from  two  of  their  own 
number: 

"  If  we  wish  to  know  the  force  of  human  genius,  we  should  read 
Shakespeare ;  if  we  wish  to  see  the  insignificance  of  human  learn- 
ing, we  may  study  his  commentators."— fF<//iaw  HazUtt. 

"In  all  literature  there  is  perhaps  nothing  more  dull,  dismal, 
unprofitable,  taken  as  a  whole,  tnan  Shakespearean  criticism! 
Here  and  there,  no  doubt,  we  come  upon  a  writer  of  superior  dis- 
cernment, such,  for  instance,  as  Coleridge,  who,  if  he  adds  little  to 
the  illumination  of  Shakespeare,  at  least  starts  fancies  of  his  own; 
but,  for  the  most  part,  criticism  on  this  subject  is  a  depressing  ex- 
hibition of  fussy  self-conceit  and  commonplace  twaddle." — Satur. 
day  Jieview,  June  17,  1876. 

*  From  his  verdict  as  a  juror  in  the  Arena  Magazine,  Boston, 
Mass. 


OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON  55 

Alfred  Russel  Wallace. 
"  Never,  surely,  was  there  so  utterly  baseless  a  claim  as 
that  made  by  the  advocates  of  Bacon  against  Shakspere."^ 

—  (1893). 

A  London  Journal. 
"  How  any  human  being  of  ordinary  intellect  can  read 
that  address  (Heminge  and  Condell's),  and  Ben  Jonson's 
poem  prefixed  to  this  edition,  and  then  believe  that  Shak- 
spere  was  not  the  author  of  these  plays  is  beyond  compre- 
hension. Examined  in  the  light  of  these  simple  testimonies, 
the  Baconian  theory  is  one  of  the  wildest  as  well  as  one  of 
the  most  absurd  delusions  ever  suggested."  ^ 

George  L.  Kittredge.^ 
"I  advise  you  not  to  read  Baconian  books."* —  (1895). 

Holcombe  Ingleby. 
"  Unhappily,  nothing  will  ever  check  the  strangest  and 
most  grotesque  theories  from  being  entertained,  so  long  as 
there  are  men  who  cannot  appreciate  the  value  of  evidence." 

—  (1897). 

D.  H.  Madden. 
"  Bacon  has  been  at  pains  to  prove  his  incapacity  of  the 
higher   flights   of   poetry    by    printing   in   the    year  1625  a 

*  From  his  verdict  as  a  juror  iu  the  Arena  Magazine,  Boston, 
Mass. 

^  The  above  statement  was  made  on  the  occasion  of  the  dedica 
tion  of  a  monument  to  Heminge  and  Condell  in  the  London  church- 
yard where  they  lie  buried.     The  inscription  on  the  monument 
tells  us  that  to  them  as  editors  of  the  Folio,  "  the  world  owes  all  it 
calls  Shakespeare." 

3  Professor  of  English  in  Harvard  University,  instructing  a  class 
of  young  ladies  in  Radcliffe  College.  With  more  power  in  the 
Professor's  hands  it  would  have  been  but  a  step  beyond  this  to  do 
as  the  English  government  did  with  Tyndale's  edition  of  the  Eng- 
lish Bible  in  1527 ;  it  forbade  any  one  to  read  it,  and  made  a  bonfire 
of  all  copies  found  in  circulation.  Bacon  said  of  College  students 
in  his  time,  that  they  were  taught  to  believe,  not  to  investigate. 
That  seems  to  be  Prof.  Kittredge's  view  of  collegiate  instruction 
today. 


56  OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON. 

*  Translation  of  Certain  Psalms  into  English  Verse,'  in  which 
he  has  transmuted  fine  oriental  imagery  into  poor  rhyming 

prose." »  — (1897). 

JoHJf    FiSKK. 

"  I  have  a  wheelbarrow-load  of  rubbish  written  to  prove 
that  such  plays  as  'King  Lear'  and  'The  Merry  Wives  of 
Windsor '  emanated  from  one  of  the  least  poetical  and  least 
humorous  minds  of  modern  times.  .  .  .  Not  one  of  the 
writers  can  by  any  pei'missible  laxity  of  speech  be  termed  a 
scholar."-— (1897). 

^Prof.  Madden,  Vice-Chancellor  of  the  University  of  Dublin, 
proves  his  own  incapacity  of  making  a  fair  statement  by  omitting  to 
say  that  Milton  did  precisely  the  same  thing,  and  even  into 
"rhyming  prose  "  poorer  than  Bacon's.  A  critic  that  v^ill  do  thi4 
may  be  expected,  when  prejudices  are  at  stake,  to  strip  Milton  also 
of  his  laurels.  Another  bit  of  wisdom  enlightening  us  from 
Madden  is,  that  we  must  not  "  look  for  poetry  of  the  highest  order 
at  the  hands  of  a  great  philosopher,  statesman  and  lawyer."  Will 
this  wonderful  Vice-Chaucellor  please  inform  us  to  what  difference 
in  intellectuality  Milton  and  Goethe  owed  their  poetical  gifts  as 
distinguished  from.  Bacon?  Mr.  Spedding  indulged  in  no  such 
nonsense.  He  said:  '"Had  Bacon's  genius  taken  the  ordinary 
direction,  I  little  doubt  that  it  would  have  carried  him  to  a  place 
among  the  great  poets." 

-  Dr.  Fiske  claims  to  have  derived  these  judgments  of  Bacon 
(least  poetical  and  least  humorous)  from  a  "forty  years'  acquaint- 
ance with  Bacon's  works."  That  he  was  incorrect  in  them,  as  he 
was  generally  in  his  views  of  American  history  where  opposing 
opinions  were  to  be  weighed,  can  easily  be  shown:  ° 

1    As  to  poetry : 

"The  poetical  faculty  was  powerful  in  Bacon's  mind." — 
Macmilay. 

"  Bacon  was  a  poet."  —  Percy  Bisshe  Shelley, 

"  One  of  the  finest  of  this  poetic  progeny."  —  Taine. 

"  Poetry  pervades  the  thoughts,  it  inspires  the  similes,  it  hymns 
in  the  majestic  sentences  of  the  wisest  of  mankind." — E.  Buiwer 
Lytton. 

"  Bacon  had  all  the  natural  faculties  which  a  poet  wants, — a  fine 
ear  for  metre,  a  fine  feeling  for  imaginative  effect  in  words,  and  a 
vein  of  poetic  passion.  Had  his  genius  taken  the  ordinary  direc- 
tion, I  have  little  doubt  that  it  would  have  carried  him  to  a  place 
among  the  great  poets." — 'James  Spedding. 

Mr.  Spedding  also  gave  forty  years  to  study  of  Bacon. 

2     As  to  humor: 

"  Bacon  hath  great  wit  and  much  learning." —  Queen  Elizabeth. 

"  His  language,  where  he  could  spare  or  pass  by  a  jest,  was  nobly 
censorious."  —  Ben  Jonson. 

"  One  of  the  ijetty  blemishes  which,  though  lost  in  tlie  splendor 


OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON.  57 

Georgk  Buandes. 
"  la  recent  days  a  troop  of  less  than  half-educated  people 
have  put  forth  the  doctrine  that  Shakspere  did  not  write  the 
plays  and  poems  attributed  to  him.  Here  it  has  fallen  into 
the  hands  of  raw  Americans  and  fanatical  women."  ^  — 
(1898). 

'QUARTKKLT    ReVIEW.' 

"  There  is  no  difficulty  in  supposing  that  a  clever  man, 
living  among  wits,  could  pick  up  French  and  Italian  suffi- 
cient for  his  uses.  But  extremely  stupid  people  are  naturally 
amazed  by  even  such  commonplace  acquirements,  .  .  .  Shak- 
spere, ex  hypothesis  was  a  rude,  unlettered  fellow.  Such  a 
man,  the  Baconians  assume,  would  naturally  be  chosen  by 
Bacon  as  his  mask,  and  put  forward  as  the  author  of  Bacon's 
pieces.  Bacon  would  select  an  ignoramus  as  a  plausible 
author  of  plays,  which,  by  the  theory,  are  rich  in  knowledge 
of  the  classics,  and  nobody  would  be  surprised.  .  .  .  Ignor- 
ance can  go  no  further  than  in  these  arguments.  Such  are 
the  logic  and  learning  of  American  amateurs,  who  do  not 
even  know  the  names  of  the  books  they  talk  about,  or  the 
languages  in  which  they  are  written.  Such  learning  and 
such  logic  are  passed  off  by  '  the  less  than  half  educated,'  on 
the  absolutely  untaught,  who  decline  to  listen  to  scholars."^ 
—  (1898). 

of  Lord  Bacon's  excellences,  it  is  not  unfair  to  mention,  is  this:  he 
is  sometimes  too  metaphorical  and  too  witty." — Henry  Hallam. 

"In  wit    .     .     .     he  never  had  an  equal." —  il/a^rtttA^j. 

It  would  be  much  nearer  the  truth  than  is  Fiske's  partisan 
statement  to  say  that  Bacon's  mind  was  one  of  the  most  poetic  and 
most  humorous  of  modern  times. 

As  to  scholarship,  there  was  then  living,  within  1000  feet  of 
Fiske's  home,  one  of  the  finest  scholars  of  America,  author  of  a 
very  learned  work  advocating  the  Baconian  theory,  and  of  another 
entitled  '  Realistic  Idealism  in  Philosophy  Itself;'  formerly  Justice 
of  the  Supreme  Judicial  Court  of  Missouri,  Law  Professor  of 
Harvard  University,  etc,  etc.  He  had  no  superior,  hardly  an  equal, 
in  Cambridge. 

^From  his  'William  Shakespeare,'  I.  104. 

^'July,  1898,  p.  35. 


58  OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON. 

'  Manchester  Guardian.' 
^'  The  author  describes  it  as  a  '  Brief  for  the  Plaintiff,'  and 
argues  with   admirable  gravity  in  favor  of  the  topsy-turvy 
theory  that   Shakespeare  is   not  Shakspere,  but  Bacon."  — 
(1898). 

Helen  Keller.  ' 

"Your  book  is  very  interesting.  Some  of  the  arguments 
are  startling,  and  all  of  them  ingenious ;  but  they  have  not 
made  a  Baconian  of  me.  You  know,  I  told  you  that  I  felt 
quite  safe  in  my  fortress;  for  I  knew  that  your  battering-ram 
of  facts  would  be  powerless  against  love's  armaments. 

"I  have  just  finished  'Macbeth,'  and  am  now  reading 
Bacon's  Essays,  Try  as  hard  as  I  may,  I  cannot  discover 
any  great  resemblance  between  Bacon  and  Shakespeare. 
Bacon's  style  is  calm,  beautiful,  intellectual,  but  cold.  Occa- 
sionally, one  is  dazzled  by  the  splendor  of  a  great  thought ; 
but  he  never  touches  a  chord  which  sets  the  human  heart  to 
vibrating.  On  the  other  hand,  Shakespeare's  plays  are 
crammed  full  of  deep,  tender,  passionate  human  feeling. 
He  studied  the  hearts  of  his  fellow-men  more  than  their 
intellects,  and  that  is  why  our  love  for  him  is  so  real  and 
personal.  To  paraphrase  his  own  words,  we  cannot  read  his 
lines  and  remember  not  the  hand  that  wrote  them.  We  are 
as  sure  of  the  nobility  and  beauty  of  his  character  as  of  his 
incomparable  genius;  we  admire  his  art  and  love  the 
master."  — (1899). 

W.  Carew  IIazlitt. 
"  That  Bacon,  situated  as  he  was  in  constant  and  anxious 
expectation  of  loyal  advancement,  did  not  venture  to  asso- 
ciate himself  publicly  with  such  performances,  had  they  even 
been    capable    of    utilization  as   he   left   them,  is  perfectly 

obvious It  has  always  struck  us  as  extraordinary, 

and  almost  as  a  problem  to  be  explained,  hoAv  the  two  great- 

*One  of  the  most  wouderfal  personalities  the  world  has  ever 
known. 


OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON  59 

est  Englishmen  belonged  to  one  era,  neajly  in  the  same 
interval  of  years,  how  they  lived,  as  it  were,  side  hy  siJe, 
face  to  face,  yet,  so  far  as  we  can  learn,  strangers  to  each 
other ;  one,  a  poetical  philosopher ;  the  other,  a  philosophical 
poet ;  and  at  length,  according  to  some,  the  mystery  is  un- 
ravelled, the  veil  is  rent  asunder,  and  not  Stratford,  but 
Gorhambury,  is  entitled  to  the  glory  of  being  the  first  village 
in  the  world.  A  Cathedral  city  without  a  bishop,  a  shrine 
with  relics  canonized  by  no  church,  only  by  the  voice  of  all 
educated  mankind."'—  (1899). 

Anonymous. 
*' [Mr.  Reed's* Bacon  vs.  Shakspere' ]  is  one  of  the  most 
dishonest  pieces  of  criticism  I  have  ever  met  with.  It  is  un- 
fair to  the  extent  of  falsehood.  I  could  write  quires  if  I 
were  to  point  out  all  the  shallow  arguments,  forced  miscon- 
structions, baseless  assumptions,  and  direct  errors  with  which 
the  volume  bristles  from  beginning  to  end."  - —  (1899). 

Paek  Godwin. 
"It  was  reserved   for   the   long-eared   quidnuncs   of   the 
present  century,   who  invented   the  Baconian  nonsense,  to 
raise  the  thinnest  mist  of  a  doubt."  ^ —  (1900). 

^Tbis  is  said  in  irony,  however  out  of  place  such  irony  may  be, 
concerning  the  relations  between  a  "poetical  pbilosopber  "  and  a 
"  philosophical  poet "  under  the  circumstances.  It  reminds  us  of 
the  ease  with  which  the  world  was  deluded  for  many  years  in  the 
matter  of  the  authorship  of  the  Waverley  Novels.  The  books,  now 
being  written  in  behalf  of  Bacon  as  the  author  of  Shake-speare,  are 
in  some  respects  mere  transcripts,  mutatis  viutandis,  of  those  which 
once  sought  to  prove,  against  Scott's  positive  denials,  mauy  times 
repeated,  and  even  against  rival  claimants  (one  of  them  a  clergy- 
man), that  Scott  himself  was  the  author.  Many  a  mind  is  like  the 
eye  of  an  owl,  the  more  light  you  throw  upon  it  the  more  it 
contracts. 

^Said  in  a  Boston  (Mass.)  journal  to  have  been  written  by  an 
"excellent  English  Shaksperean  scholar  and  author." 

^This  occurs  in  a  recent  book  by  Mr.  Godwin  on  Shake-speare's 
Sonnets.  The  Sonnets,  as  our  readers  will  remember,  were 
addressed  by  their  author  "  to  Mr.  W.  H. ;"  that  is,  as  Godwin 
interprets  tlie  initials,  to  Mr.  William  Himself.  Ex  pede  Horculem. 
Godwin's  book  is  beyond  doubt  the  most  inane  and  foolish  ever 
written  on  the  subject. 


6o  OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON 

Sidney  Lek.  ' 
"  Why  should  the  Baconian  theorists  have  any  following 
outside  lunatic  asylums  ?  .  .  .  Those  who  adopt  the  Baconian 
theory  in  any  of  its  phases  should  be  classed  with  the  be- 
lievers in  the  Cocklane  ghost  or  in  Arthur  Orton's  identity 
with  Roger  Tichborne.  Ignorance,  vanity,  inability  to  test 
evidence,  lack  of  scholarly  habits  of  mind,  are  in  each  of  these 
instances  found  to  be  the  main  causes  predisposing  half-edu- 
cated members  of  the  public  to  the  acceptance  of  the  delusion; 
and  when  any  of  the  genuinely  deluded  victims  have  been 
narrowly  examined,  they  have  invariably  exhibited  a  tendency 
to  monomania.  .  .  .  The  whole  farrago  of  printed  verbiage 
which  fosters  the  Baconian  bacillus  is  unworthy  of  serious 
attention  from  any  but  professed  students  of  intellectual  ab- 
erration." —  (1901). 

H.    H.    ASQUITH. 

*'  The  task  which  confronts  the  writer  of  a  life  like 
Shakspere's  is  not  to  transcribe  and  vivify  a  record:  it  is 
rather  to  solve  a  problem  by  the  methods  of  hypothesis  and 
inference.  His  work  is  bound  to  be,  not  so  much  an  essay 
in  biography,  as  in  the  more  or  less  scientific  use  of  the 
biographic  imagination.  The  difficulty  is,  of  course,  infinitely 
enhanced  in  this  particular  case  by  the  impersonal  quality  of 
most  of  Shakspere's  writings  —  a  quality  which  I  myself  am 
heretic  enough  to  believe  extends  to  by  far  the  greater  part 
of  the  Sonnets.  We  do  not  know  that  the  greatest  teacher 
of  antiquity  wrote  a  single  line.  Shakspere,  who  died  less 
than  three  hundred  years  ago,  must  have  written  well  over  a 
hundred  thousand.  And  yet,  thanks  to  Plato  and  Xenophon, 
we  have  a  far  more  definite  and  vivid  acquaintance  with  the 

^  We  advise  any  one  wlio  may  wish  to  take  a  correct  measure  of 
Mr.  Lee,  as  biographer  of  Shakspere,  to  read  Mr.  George  Stronach's 
pamphlet  entitled  'Mr.  Sidney  Lee  and  the  Baconians,'  published 
by  Messrs.  Gay  and  Bird,  22  IJedford  St.,  Londou.  Price,  1  d.  Or 
a  copy  may  be  obtained  with  our  compliments  on  application  to  us, 
at  Audover,  Mass.,  IT.  S.  A.  Ic  is  a  capital  piece  of  work,  even  in 
the  Latin  seni>e  of  thut  word. 


OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON.  6i 

man  Socrates  than  we  shall  ever  have  with  the  man  Shak- 
spere."^— (1901). 

Charles  L.  Dana. 
"  The  Baconians  have  obsessions  [mental  states  caused  by 
evil  spirits]  or  ideas  fixed  and  disproportionately  dominant 
in  their  minds,  leading  them  to  weak  logic,  stupendous  mis- 
representations, and  often  to  erratic  conduct.  .  .  Such 
people  have  received  the  scientific  name  of  mattoids.  ^ 
The  mattoid  flourishes  in  America  because  we  have  so  large 
a  proportion  of  half  educated  minds,  and  no  central  author- 
ity, or  respect  for  such  as  we  have."  [!]  —  (1901). 

Sir  Hbnry  Irving, 

"  The  case  against  Shakespeare  seems  to  rest  on  nothing 
better  than  the  assumption  that,  because  Bacon  was  a 
learned  man  and  Shakespeare  wrote  a  very  poor  hand,  there- 
fore Bacon  must  be  the  real  author  of  the  Plays." " 

"  I  fear  that  the  desire  to  take  Shakespeare  from  his  right- 
ful position  is  due  to  that  antipathy  to  the  actor's  calling 
which  has  its  eccentric  manifestations  to  this  day."*  — 
(1902). 


^The  writer's  definition  of  biography  is,  of  course,  to  be  con- 
demned. We  can  conceive  of  nothing  more  inimical  to  the  cause 
of  truth  than  this  would  be,  if  generally  adopted.  Mr.  Asquith 
does  not  disgrace  himself,  howjver,  by  expressing  a  hope  that  we 
may  never  know  more  than  we  now  do  of  the  greatest  author  of  all 
time.  A  British  statesman,  though  he  may  be  wrong  in  his  phil- 
osophy, has  always  some  respect  for  the  laws  of  heredity. 

^A  medical  term,  signifying  drunken  or  stupid  monomaniacs. 

3 In  letter  to  us. 

*From  Sir  Heni-y's  Princeton  address.  That  is  to  say,  a  search 
for  the  highest  possible  authorship  of  plays  marks  a  geneial  de- 
preciation of  the  histrionic  art! 

But  here  is  another  gem  of  logic,  equally  brilliant,  from  the  same 
address:  "As  for  the  Baconians,  they  assiduously  forget  that 
Shakspere  [of  Stratford]  was  the  greatest  of  poets."  Our  readers 
will  hardly  be  surprised  to  learn  that  on  the  morning  after  the 
delivery  of  this  extraordinary  address  a  leading  newspaper  of  the 
"  intellectual  city"  of  New  York  proclaimed  that  the  question  of 
authorship  was  then  finally  and  forever  settled. 


62  OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON 

The  Literary  World  (London). 
"  These  two  books  on  the  next  shelf  are  by  Mr.  Edwin 
Reed.  We  noticed  at  some  length  a  book  by  this  writer 
more  than  three  years  ago,  and  we  showed  that  it  was  a  mass 
of  ignorance  and  folly  and  misrepresentation.  For  all  that, 
it  is  still  in  circulation  ;  for  no  pabulum  is  too  gross  for  the 
people  who  use  this  library ;  and  the  more  they  swallow,  the 
more  they  want.  .  .  Mr.  Reed  audaciously  transfers 
the  works  of  the  great  dramatist  bodily  to  Bacon,  his  Bacon  ; 
insomuch  that  when  he  affects  to  compare  Bacon's  poetry 
with  Milton's  he  takes  a  long  passage  from  '  Hamlet '  to  rep- 
resent the  former.  With  regard  to  their  value  as  evidence, 
therefore,  the  piles  of  stuff  he  puts  before  us,  their  founda- 
tions being  rotten,  become  a  mere  heap  of  rubbish 

We  will  here  say  no  more  than  that  what  the  publishers  call 
'  Baconian  Literature  '  is  not  merely  and  negatively  a  lot  of 

biblia  a  biblia.,  but  a  positive  disgrace  to   literature 

Questions  affecting  mind  and  morals  come  to  the  front;  the 
power  of  discriminating  between  truth  and  error  has  ceased 
to  exist." ^  —  (1902). 

^The  passage  from  '  Hamlet'  was  introduced  to  show,  under  the 
Kule  of  Three  as  it  were,  that  in  matter  of  style  no  more  difference 
exists  between  Bacon's  prose  and  Hamlet  than  there  is  between 
the  prose  and  poetry  of  Milton.  We  regret  that  the  able  critic  of 
the  '  World '  did  not  perceive  the  nature  of  the  argument.  His 
office,  however,  is  a  useful  one,  for  the  car  of  human  progress 
requires  many  brakemen  to  one  stoker. 

Concerning  the  same  book,  we  quote  the  following  from  Mr. 
Edmund  Gosse:  "The  Baconian  hypothesis  can  never  be  stated 
with  more  courtesy  and  candor,  with  keener  ingenuity,  or  with 
fuller  investigation  than  has  in  this  instance  been  done." 

Also,  from  Mr.  Edmund  0.  Stedman:  "Even  a  staunch  Shake- 
sperean  ought  to  read  your  'Brief  without  feeling  his  animosity 
aroused." 

We  add  on  our  own  account  that  no  one  can  write  an  author  up 
or  down  but  himself.  A  book  always  gravitates  to  its  rigiitful 
place  at  last,  under  laws  as  immutable  as  those  of  physical  nature. 
Freudenberger's  pamphlet  was  ordered  by  the  authorities  of  Uri  to 
be  burned  in  the  public  square  by  the  common  hangman,  and 
Freudenberger  himself  was  obliged  to  flee  for  his  life;  but  now, 
one  hundred  and  forty  years  after,  it  has  conquered  the  world. 
And  the  'William  Tell'  myth  was  supported,  precisely  as  the 
Shaksperean  one  has  been,  by  forgeries,  deceptions  of  all  kinds, 
and  personal  rancor  from  beginning  to  end. 


OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON  63 

'The  Times'  (London). 
"  It  is  just  as  difficult  to  understand  how  Burns  produced 
his  lyrics  as  how  Shakespeare  produced  his  plays,  with  this 
difference  —  that  we  know  all  the  opportunities  that  Burns 
had,  while  we  know  so  little  of  Shakespeare  that  he  may 
have  done  much  study  and  had  many  experiences  of  which 
there  is  no  record.  What  we  do  know  of  him,  however,  is 
that  he  was  a  living  man,  mixing  in  the  intellectual  life  of 
London,  and  impressing  his  contemporaries  with  his  wit  and 
information.  To  get  over  contemporary  opinion  we  must 
suppose  that  Bacon  not  only  wrote  the  plays,  but  personated 
Shakespeare  in  every-day  life."  ^ —  (1902). 

The  '  Illusteated  London  News.' 
"  The  gravity  of  these  Baconians  is  as  wonderful  as  their 
research.  Hostess  Quickly,  describing  the  death  of  Falstaff 
in  '  Hen.  V,'  tells  us  that  his  feet  were  as  cold  as  any  stone. 
You  may  think  this  coldness,  as  a  sign  of  approaching  dis- 
solution, might  have  been  discovered  by  Shakespeare,  or  by 
any  other  moderately  careful  observer.  That  is  too  common- 
place an  explanation  for  the  solemn  erudition  of  Mr.  Reed. 
He  cites  Bacon  on  the  '  coldness  of  the  extremities,'  and  Hip- 
pocrates on  the  '  extremities  cold,'  and  suggests  that  this  phe- 
nomenon could  have  been  known  only  to  a  profound 
student  of  the  ancient  Greek.  .  .  A  few  grains  of  com- 
mon sense,  to  say  nothing  of  imagination,  might  save  Mr. 
Reed  and  his  like  from   volumes  of    folly."  ^ 

'There  is  an  American  gentleman,  named  Edwin  Reed, 
who  goes  on  producing  volumes  of  Baconian  wisdom  for  the 

^The  difference  between  Burns'  productions  and  those  of  Shake- 
speare in  their  bearing  on  the  question  of  authorship  does  not  seem 
to  have  occurred  to  this  editorial  writer. 

^This  is  a  case  of  snppressio  veri  with  undoubted  intent  to 
deceive.  The  presages  of  death,  given  by  Hostess  Quickly,  were 
seven  in  number,  all  of  which,  including  the  one  cited  by  the  News, 
are  found  in  Hippocrates,  and  all  but  one  in  Bacon.  The  fact  that 
they  were  copied  from  Hippocrates  is  shown,  not  only  by  the  num- 
ber of  them  under  the  law  of  accumulation,  but  also  by  the  word 
green  which  Hippocrates  uses  in  his  descriiition  of  the  face  of  a  dying 


64  OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON 

confusion  of  Shakspere.  He  is  candid  as  well  as  industrious, 
and  when  he  makes  an  assertion  in  the  text  does  not  mind 
refuting  it  in  a  foot-note.  For  instance,  a  passage  in  the 
second  edition  of  Hamlet,  about  the  influence  of  the  moon  on 
the  tides,  was  left  out  of  the  first  Folio  of  1623.  Why? 
Because  '  Bacon  had  changed  his  opinion  on  the  subject.' 
But  Mr.  Reed  admits  that  the  opinion  remains  in  four  other 
plays  printed  in  the  first  Folio.  Here  is  the  rock  on  which 
the  Baconian  theory  splits.'  ^  —  (1902). 

A  London  Periodical. 

"  Baconocrankism  stands  out  as  a  sordid  superstition,  as 
baseless  in  aspect  of  fact  as  it  is  slanderous  toward  the 
dead."— (1902). 

The  foregoing  is  a  criticism  aimed  at  Mr.  George  Stronach,  of 
the  Advocates'  Library  of  Edinburgh.  Mr.  Stronach  replied  to  it 
as  follows : 

"  I  grant  I  may  have  slandered  the  '  man  of  Stratford  *  by  stating 
that  be  did  not  v^rite,  and  could  not  have  written  the  plays  at- 
tributed to  bim.  But  what  is  this  when  compared  with  the 
slanders  in  the  standard  life  of  Shakspere  by  Sidney  Lee?  Accord- 
ing to  this  authority, — 

1.  William  Shakspere  seduced  and  was  forced  to  marry  Anne 

man  in  Greece,  where  the  people  are  olive-complexioned.  Shake- 
speare uses  it  in  the  same  manner:  "His  nose  was  as  sharp  as  a 
pen  on  a  table  of  green  field."  This  reference  to  the  color  of  the 
background  is  certainly  Hippocratic,  for  it  cannot  apply  to  an 
Englishman.  Nor  would  it  have  occurred  to  an  Englishman  who 
was  not  very  erudite,  or  who  had  not  traveled  in  Southern  Europe. 
The  important  point,  which  The  News  omits  to  mention,  is  that 
now  for  the  first  time  (after  Dr.  Creighton),  and  by  collation  with 
the  original  Greek,  Hostess  Quickly's  famous  speech  is  correctly 
given.  Theobald's  "babbling  "  (1733)  nonsense,  a  known  interpola- 
tion made  more  than  one  hundred  years  after  the  play  was  printed, 
has  been  followed  long  enough. 

1  Bacon  changed  his  opinion  regarding  the  cause  of  the  daily 
tides,  rejecting  the  almost  universal  theory  of  mankind  that  they 
are  due  to  the  influence  of  the  moon,  in  1616.  The  tragedy  of 
Hamlet  was  revised  by  the  author  after  that  date  and  the  old 
theory  left  out.  The  other  plays  mentioned  were  not  so  revised, 
and  in  them  the  old  theory  was  naturally  retained.  This  was  fully 
explained  in  the  said  foot-note. 


OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON  65 

Hathaway,  who  had  a  child  by  him  five  months  after  their  mar- 
riage.— Lee,  p.  22. 

2.  He  had  to  leave  Stratford  for  poaching. — Lee,  27. 

3.  He  cheated  his  fellow-townsmen  in  the  matter  of  the  enclosure 
of  public  lands. — Lee,  270. 

4.  He  endeavored  to  obtain  by  means  of  false  statements  a  coat- 
of-arms. — Lee,  188. 

5.  He  barred  his  wife's  dower,  and  cut  her  off,  not  with  the  usual 
shilling,  but  with  his  '  second-best  bed.' — Lee,  274. 

6.  He  neglected  his  daughter  Judith's  education,  so  that  at  the 
age  of  27  she  signed  her  name  with  a  mark. — Lee,  226. 

7.  He  anticipated  Burbage   in   a  disgraceful  assignation  made 
with  a  woman  at  a  theatre. — I^ee,  26.5. 

8.  He  died  of  a  drunken  debauch. — Lee,  271-2." 

The  '  East  Anglian  Times.' 
"To  the  majority  of  thinking  men  these  draniaR  have  been, 
and  are,  the  most  miraculous  achievement  of  a  human  intel- 
lect. Tennyson  has  left  on  record  his  ignorance  of  any 
mental  process  by  which  they  could  have  be(!n  written. 
Emerson  has  said,  '  A  good  reader  can,  in  a  sort,  nestle  into 
Plato's  brain,  and  think  from  thence  ;  but  not  into  Shake- 
speare's.' But  in  the  fulness  of  time  Mr.  Edwin  Reed  has 
plucked  the  heart  out  of  the  mystery  ;  he  can  play  on  the 
recorder.  It  is  a  tune  of  his  own  composition,  and  sensitive 
people  stop  their  ears ;  but  he  plays  merrily  on.  And  why 
should  he  not?  Did  not  Francis  Bacon,  by  the  mouth  of 
Hamlet,  say  that  it  is  as  easy  as  lying  ?"  —  (1902). 

*The  Daily  People.' 
"  *  Francis  Bacon,  our  Shake-speare  '  is  an  effort  that  is 
equally  futile  as  the  other  [on  Parallelisms].  Both  books 
together  are  enough  to  damn  any  cause.  The  pity  of  putting 
good  paper  and  good  type  in  these  two  volumes,  when  the 
'  Man  in  the  Purple  Pants,'  '  Locked  in  the  Safe,  or  a  Brave 
Boy's  Daring  Deed,'  '  A  Rise  in  the  World,  or  Stepping  on 
a  Barrel  Hoop,'  '  Naughty  Nettie's  Nineteen  Lovers,'  and 
other  choice  bits  of  literature  are  forced  to  come  before  the 
world  in  cheap  five-and-ten-cent  editions !  The  crime  that 
some  books  are  !"—( 1 902  ) . 


66  OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON. 


Edwaed  L.  Temple.  ' 
"  One  ambitious  and  blatant  quidnunc  would  have  the 
brain  of  another,  great  indeed  in  his  own  domain,  rob  Sbak- 
spere  of  his  unrivalled  glory,  by  means  of  a  microscopical 
analysis,  far-fetched  and  fanciful ;  an  analysis  which  would 
sustain  Mother  Goose's  authorship  of  the  Lord's  Prayer  as 
thoroughly  as  it  does  the  Baconian  parentage  of  these 
dramas."— ri  892). 

Franklin  H.  Head. 
"Shakespeare,  in  *A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream,'  says, 
'  Let  no  dog  bark.'  Bacon  says,  in  his  Essay  of  Gardens, 
'  The  bark  of  this  tree,'  etc.,  etc.  This  parallelism,  that  occurs 
to  us,  seems  to  have  escaped  Mr.  Reed's  vision.  lie  is  wel- 
come to  its  use  in  case  another  edition  of  his  book  is  ever 
called  for  ;    .  .  what  the  Baconians  call  evidence  is  surely 

the  weakest  scheme  ever  devised  by  human  dullness."  ^ 

(1902). 

^President  of  the  Shakespeare  Society,  Rutland,  Vt.,  U.  S.  A. 

^We  take  this  opportunity  to  say  that  the  argument  from  paral- 
lelisms is  (historical  evidences  being  in  the  nature  of  the  case  as 
far  as  possible  excluded  by  the  author)  the  strongest  that  can'  be 
presented  on  behalf  of  a  common  authorship.  We  mean,  of  course 
parallelisms,  not  in  imagery  and  diction  alone,  but  also  in  the 
whole  intent  and  scope  of  the  respective  works.  Bacon  souo-ht 
the  restoration  of  mankind  to  the  state  of  happiness  in  which°(a8 
he  believed)  it  had  lived  in  the  Garden  of  Eden  before  the  Fall, 
and  to  this  end  brought  the  whole  weight  of  his  philosophy  to 
bear  on  man's  intellect  and  moral  nature.  Accordingly  he  wrote 
in  prose  sixty-one  essays  and  in  verse  thirty-seven  dramas,  on 
traits  of  human  character,  their  beginnings,  processes  and  ends, 
not  for  amusement,  but  for  instruction.  The  first  essay  was  pub- 
lished in  1597;  the  first  drama  also  in  1597.  The  last  essay  was 
published  in  1625;  the  last  drama  in  1623  In  time,  in  character 
and  in  purpose  the  prose  and  the  poetry  are  the  same,  except  that 
in  the  one  the  principles  of  conduct  for  man's  guidance  are  laid 
down  theoretically;  they  are  worked  out,  illustrated  and  enforced, 
brought  home  to  men's  bosoms,  in  the  field  of  action  in  the  other. 
For  example,  take  the  drama  of  Julius  Ciiesar;  its  subject  is  envy. 
Bacon  wrote  also  an  essay  on  eu.y.  The  two  productions  touch 
each  other  at  every  turn  ;  in  at  least  one  hundred  and  forty  places, 
by  actual  count,  as  our  forthcoming  edition  of  the  play  will  show! 
Herein  is  the  real  legitimate  sphere  of  the  argument  from  parallel- 
isms which  our  friend,  Mr.  Head,  ridicules.  He  ridicules  it,  be- 
cause, like   the  world   in   generiil,  he   has   no   conception   of  the 


OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON.  67 

*The  Nation'  (N.  Y.) 
"  Further  argument  is  really  out  of  place  in  the  presence 
of  such  a  misrepresentation  of  known  facts  as  Mr.  Reed's 
chapter  contains.  We  have  no  doubt  that  the  misrepresen- 
tation is  unintentional.  It  exhibits,  nevertheless,  the  char- 
acter of  Mr.  Reed's  Baconian  scholarship,  and  the  equip- 
ment with  which  he  operates  in  his  attempt  to  elucidate  the 
meaning  of  the  great  philosopher."  '  —  (1902). 


meaning  of  the  Shakespeare  plays,  nor  can  he  have  until  he  learna 
who  wrote  them.  But  this  is  a  knowledge  reserved  for  the  next 
generation.  Fortunately  for  the  progress  of  humanity  old  men  die, 
for  they  never  change. 

As  to  the  imputation  of  dullness,  that  is  of  no  consequence.  It 
certainly  cannot  l)e  justly  applied  to  Mr.  Head,  he  being  one  of  the 
brightest  men  we  ever  met. 

^This  is  taken  from  a  very  elaborate  and,  generally  speaking,  an 
ingenuous  critique  contained  in  a  recent  number  of  The  Nation  (N.Y.) 
Tlie  particular  question  at  issue  was  whether  the  Shake-speare 
plays  constitute  the  fourth  pai"t  of  Bacon's  philosophical  system, 
in  accordance  with  certain  intimations  found  by  us  to  that  effect  iu 
Bacon's  prose  works. 

The  writer  makes  no  allowance  for  the  secret  in  the  case.  He 
admits  that  Bacon  approves  of  acroamatic  or  enigmatical  methods 
of  expounding  truth,  as  the  ancients  did,  but  regards  this  fact  as 
unworthy  of  consideration  here,  because  Bacon  does  not  plainly 
assertthat  he  himself  would  adopt  them.  This  is  a  fair  specimen 
of  the  author's  reasoning  powers. 

Bacon  called  his  system  Instauratio  Magna,  The  Great  Restora- 
tion, because  by  means  of  it  he  expected,  as  we  have  already  said, 
to  restore  mankind  to  its  original  state  of  bliss.  For  this  purpose 
the  system  was  divided  into  a  certain  number  of  parts,  devoted 
successively  and  in  the  following  order  to  a  consideration  of  the 
intellectual,  physical  and  moral  faculties  of  man.  One  part,  there- 
fore, and,  considering  the  end  in  view,  the  crowning  one,  was  to 
consist  of  instruction  in  morals,  but  where  is  that  part?  It  was  to 
develop,  illustrate  and  apply  right  principles  of  conduct,  such  as 
we  need  for  our  guidance  (quoting  Bacon)  in  "logic,  ethics  and 
politics;"  of  traits  of  character,  such  as  (again  quoting  Bacon) 
"anger,  fear,  shame  and  the  like;"  but  where  is  this  great  part, 
the  first  of  its  kind  in  literature,  to  befouDd?  In  Bacon's  acknowl- 
edged works?  Not  a  line  of  it!  In  works  unacknowledged  by  Bacon, 
but  produced  in  his  time,  suitable  for  his  purpose,  and,  in  form  at 
least  (under  the  prejudices  of  the  age)  demanding  a  pseudonym  ? 
What  did  Bacon  mean  when,  iu  prescribing  the  qualifications  of 
any  future  interpreter  of  nature,  who  would  follow  in  his  footsteps 
and  carry  on  the  work  as  he  himself  had  done,  he  said,  '•'•  My  son, 
thou  must  wear  a  mas/:!'"  And  what  did  he  mean,  too,  when  ho  said 
that  the  art  of  inventing  grows  by  invention  itself,  and  that  his  owa 


68  OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON. 

'The  Churchman.' 
"  New-fangled    folly    on   one   side,  and   scholarship   and 
unbroken  tradition  on  the  other." —  (1903). 

The  'Academy  and  Literature'  (London). 
"  The  whole  of  the  pullulating  mess  of  mushroom  literature 
which  has  sprung  up  around  the  [Bacon-Shakspere]  ques- 
tion in  recent  years  is  the  production  of  writers  who,  even 
where  they  are  not  actually  dishonest,  are  at  least  incapable 
of  dealing  with  any  literary  problem  in  accordance  with  the 
canons  of  sound  reasoning."  —  (1908). 

'The  Saturday  Review'  (London). 
"Here   is  a  notable  contribution   for   the  library  of  the 
Bacon-Shakspere  lunatic  asylum."  '  —  (1903). 

efforts  under  that  head  were  the  first  of  the  kind  ever  attempted? 
Perhaps  Coleridge  caught  a  glimpse  of  the  truth  when  he  declared 
that  the  Shake-speare  dramas  are  neither  tragedies,  nor  comedies, 
nor  both  in  one,  but  a  different  i^enus^  diverse  in  kind,  not  merely 
degree." 

The  Nation  is  also  on  record  as  having  taken  the  same  general 
position  as  early  as  1866,  when  Judge  Holmes'  book  first  appeared, 
as  follows:  "  The  notion  has  not  even  the  merit  of  ingenuity,  since 
it  cannot  be  maintained  but  by  violating  all  the  laws  which  have 
hitherto  obtained  in  regard  to  the  value  of  contemporary  testimony. 
....  We  believe  that  the  Baconian  theory  has  not  a  leg  to  stand 
upon." 

The  "  contemporary  testimony  "  applies  only  to  the  works  of  an 
author  known  by  his  pseudonym,  Shake-speare,  and  hag  no  more 
probative  force  on  the  question  of  real  authorship  than  similar 
references  to  George  Eliot's  Adam  Bede  would  go  to  prove  that 
that  book  was  written  by  Mary  Ann  Evans. 

'This  has  reference  to  the  New  English  Dictionary  in  which 
Dr.  Murray,  editor  in  chief,  had  recently  stated  that  "  while 
Shakespeare  used  verbs  with  the  prefix  out  fifty-four  times,  for 
thirty-eight  of  which  he  is  our  first,  and  for  nine  of  them  our  only 
authority,  we,  [Dr.  Murray  and  his  associates]  cite  Bacon  for  only 
two."  These  remarks  have  led  to  a  very  serious  arraignment  of 
the  dictionary  itself.  On  an  expert  examination  of  it  by  Mr.  G. 
Stronach  of  the  Advocates'  Library  of  Edinburgh,  a  perfectly  com- 
petent and  trustworthy  critic,  it  is  found  that  instead  of  Bacon's 
"eschewing"  that  form  of  verb,  as  alleged,  (he  used  it  often) 
Murray  as  a  rule  eschews  Bacon.  That  is  to  say,  Murray  fails  to 
draw  words  for  his  purpose  from  a  large  part  of  Bacon's  writings. 
The  "  Letters,"  for  instance,  comprised  in  seven  volumes  published 
by  Spedding  and  covering  Bacon's  whole  career,  from  1580  to  1626, 


OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON  69 

J.  Churton  Collins. 

"There  is  nothing  to  detain  us  ....  in  Mr.  Edwin  Heed's 
*  Bacon  versus  Shakspere,'  a  masterpiece  of  nonsense  which 
has  gone  through  at  least  seven  editions." 

"  And  so  this  epidemic  spreads,  till  it  has  now  assumed 
the  proportions,  and  many  of  the  characteristics,  of  the 
dancing  mania  of  the  Middle  Ages."  '  —  (1904). 


is  not  once  referred  to  in  the  dictionary,  tliough  filled  witli  words, 
a»  might  have  been  expected  of  Bacon,  that  ought  to  have  been 
cited  there.  And  this,  in  a  dictionary  that  pretends  to  give  the 
history  of  words  from  the  time  when  they  were  first  introduced 
into  the  vernacular  until  the  present.  Mr.  Stronach  shows  that  not 
only  new  words  of  the  verbal  form  in  question,  but  also  many 
others,  in  various  parts  of  speech,  running  we  have  no  doubt  into 
hundreds,  but  unnoticed  in  the  dictionary,  were  used  by  Bacon 
before  they  happened  to  find  their  way  into  the  Plays.  In  this 
state  of  things  what  becomes  of  the  dictionary  ?  Must  everything 
in  the  world  be  vitiated  by  one  giaut  blunder  in  scholarship?  We 
regret,  however,  that  we  cannot  quarrel  with  the  Saturday  Review 
for  saying  that  this  prodigious  work  in  philology  is  a  fit  contribu- 
tion to  the  libraries  of  lunatic  asylums. 

^  The  position  taken  by  Mr.  Churton  in  this  controversy  has, 
until  quite  recently,  been  to  us  incomprehensible.  He  has  shown 
beyond  all  question  (as  others,  indeed,  have  done  before  him)  that 
the  author  of  the  Plays  was  familiar  with  the  Latin  and  the  Greek 
literatures ;  and  that  he  derived  his  knowledge  of  the  former  from 
its  originals.  Mr.  Churton.  however,  goes  farther,  and,  in  order  to 
accommodate  the  authorship  of  the  Plays  to  a  comparatively 
ignorant  yokel,  asserts  that  the  dramatist  must  have  acquired  his 
knowledge  of  Greek  literature  wholly  from  Latin  translations.  W© 
have  never  doubted  that  knowledge  of  the  Greek  language  cannot 
be  safely  assumed  from  one's  familiarity  with  a  single  work  or  two 
in  Greek ;  we  took  this  ground,  in  opposition  to  Mr.  Steevena,  in 
our  Fkancis  Bacon,  Ouk  Shake-speake  (p.  208  n.),  published 
long  before  Mr.  Ghurton's  articles  on  the  subject  appeared;  but  to 
apply  this  theory  to  the  great  body  of  Greek  literature,  as  Mr. 
Churton  now  does,  is  manifestly  absurd.  The  explanation,  which 
we  have  sought,  has  finally  been  given  by  Dr.  E.  M.  Theobald,  the 
refined  and  justly-minded  author  of  '  Shakespeare  Studies  in 
Baconian  Light' ;  for  the  Doctor  has  fully  and  absolutely  convicted 
Churton,  not  only  of  downright  falsehood,  but  also  of  snobbery. 
The  reference,  as  above,  to  the  dancing  mania  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
in  a  purely  literary  discussion,  and  particularly  on  a  question 
whether  an  author  who  made  hundreds  of  quotations  from  the 
Greek  tragedies,  in  an  English  work  of  tragedies,  was  acquainted 
with  the  Greek  tongue  in  which  only  those  tragedies  can  be 
adequately  understood,  shows  of  itself  a  mind  the  character  of 
which  entirely  justifies  and  confirms  Dr.  Theobald's  personal 
criticism. 


70  OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON. 

Manchester  Literary  Club. 
"  Why  do  a  number  of  men  and  women,  grossly  ignorant 
it  is  true,  devote  themselves  to  the  fraud  and  cheat  of  pre- 
tending to  dethrone  Shakspere?  Why  do  they  frame  false 
history,  forge  documents,  assert  to  be  truth  what  they  know 
to  be  untruth,  for  the  poor  and  the  pitiful,  the  beggarly  re- 
ward of  dishonorable  notoriety  ?  .  .  .  .  Save  and  except  those 
who  are  crazy,  they  are  mean  and  contemptible  cheats  all." 
—(1904). 

H.  K.  D.  Anders. 
"  I  have  not  been  able  to  discover  any  traces  of  Bacon  in 
Shakespeare's  works."  *  —  (1904). 

The  '  Irish  Packet.' 
♦*  Ireland,  I  regret  to  think,  has  not  wholly  escaped  the 
contagion   of   the   Baconian   epidemic.     Life  would  be  too 
short  to    plough   this   interminable    sand,   to   winnow  this 
illimitable  chaff."  =—  (1904). 

John  Rowlands. 
"Some  may  consider  such  a  work  unnecessary,  and  the 
author  himself  would  have  maintained  that  opinion  a  few 
years  ago.  But  having  met  with  persons  of  all  classes  and 
students  of  all  grades  who  fancy  that  Bacon  was  the  real 
author,  it  ia  scarcely  necessary  to  apologize  for  attempting  to 
show  —  rather  than  assert  —  that  the  idea  is  preposterous."  ^ 
—  (1904). 

*  This  is  taken  from  Herr  Ander's  Book,  Schiften  der  Detttschen 
Shakespeare  Gesellschafi,  Band  i.  It  is  devoted  to  an  exposition  of 
Shakespeare's  indebtedness  to  other  authors.  He  traces  nearly 
2000  ytassages  in  the  plays  and  poems  to  their  originals  elsewhere, 
but  not  one  to  Bacon.  He  claims  that  not  one  that  can  be  credited 
to  Bacon  exists. 

^So  far  as  we  can  judge  at  this  distance,  the  brightest  minds  in 
Ireland  (where  bright  minds  abound)  are  with  Bacon ;  such  as 
George  Moore,  Judge  Henn,  Sir  Francis  Cruise,  Archbishop  Walsh, 
Rev.  Wm.  A.  Sutton,  S.  J.,  Mouseigueur  Molloy  and  Father  Healy. 

^From  the  preface  to  the  author's  little  book  entitled  'Shakspere 
still  Enthroned,'    Mr.  Rowlaud's  testimony  to  the  rapid  spread  of 


OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON  71 

Richard  Garnett. 

Edmund  Gossk. 
"The  parallel  [between  Shakespeare's  The  Tempest  and 
Bacon's  The  New  Atlantis]  suffices  to  display  the  ludicrous- 
ness  of  the  identification  of  Bacon  with  Shakespeare.  Shake- 
speare waves  his  wand,  and  a  new  world  starts  up  around 
him.  Bacon  transplants  the  world  he  knows  to  an  imaginary 
locality.  ^  So  little  of  the  wild  and  wonderful  is  there  in  his 
work  that  one  of  the  chief  merits  claimed  for  it  is,  to  have 
prefigured  the  institution  of  the  royal  society  and  to  have  not 
improbably  influenced  its  founders."^ —  (1904). 

C.  Creighton,  M.  D. 
"  This  is  his  [Shakspere's]  personal  judgment  upon  the 
fame  of  Francis  Bacon.  It  arises  out  of  the  word-play  of 
memory  in  two  senses,  the  train  of  thought  being  that  a  man 
whose  own  memory  is  short  ought  not  to  live  long  in  the 
memory  of  others.  But  an  easy  memory  in  this  case  meant 
an  easy  conscience.""  —  (1904). 

Baconian  sentiment  among  all  classes  in  England  at  the  present 
time  is  perfectly  accurate.  A  few  years  ago,  a  London  journal, 
bitterly  hostile  to  us,  estimated  the  number  of  Baconians  in  that 
country  and  the  U.  S.  combined  at  not  less  than  a  half  million ; 
the  number  is  now  certainly  among  the  millions.  We  learn  from 
the  highest  source  that  the  same  state  of  things  exists  in  France. 
It  was  said  in  a  recent  French  periodical  that  "  whereas  French 
books  about  English  literature  did  not  speak  of  this  controversy  a 
few  years  ago,  they  now  generally  find  room  for  a  more  or  less 
large  discussion  of  it." 

We  shall  take  the  liberty  to  regai'd  Mr.  Rowland's  description  of 
the  Droeshout  engraving  and  also  of  the  Stratford  bust  of  Shak- 
spere  as  ironical,  until  we  are  authoritatively  assured  to  the 
contrary. 

'  As  though  Shake-speare  did  not  transplant  the  scene  of  The 
Tempest  to  an  "  imaginary  locality  "  !  They  are  both  new  worlds ; 
both,  islands  of  the  imagination:  and  both  intended  to  pre-figure 
a  future  life.  The  editorial  levity  on  this  point  is  itself  "ludi- 
crous." 

^  From  the  History  of  English  Literature,  issued  under  the  joint 
editorship  of  Messrs.  Garnett  and  Gosse. 

"From  Shakespeare's  Story  of  his  Life,"  by  C.  Creighton,  p.  95. 
The  chief  object  of  the  writer  of  this  book  seems  to  have  been, 
we  regret  to  say,  to  show  the  existence  of  gross  immoralities  in  the 


72  OPINIOiYS,  PRO  AND  CON. 

Walter.  W.  Skeat 
"  Said  Hood :  '  I  know,  if  I'd  a  mind, 
I  could  like  Shakespeare  write. 
And  soon  could  prove  to  all  mankind 

How  well  I  can  indite; 
And  yet,'  remarked  this  genial  man, 

'  A  little  hitch  I  And 
That  somewhat  mars  my  simple  plan  — 
I  havn't  got  the  mind ! ' 
"  So  Bacon  might  have  borne  his  part 
And  said:  '  For  sake  of  praise, 
I  well  could  find  it  in  my  heart 

To  write  all  Shakespeare's  plays; 
But  ah !  I  feel  a  touch  of  fear 

That  somewhat  makes  me  start; 
I  have  the  mind  serene  and  clear, 
But  havn't  got  the  heart.'  "  ^ 

—  (1904). 

We  bring  this  expose  to  a  close  by  o^iving  a  specimen 
of  what  may  reasonably  be  considered  on  both  sides 
fair,  impartial  criticism,  adapted  to  the  present  stage  of 
the  enquiry  : 

The  'Madras  Mail.' 
"It  seems  to  me  something  more  than  childish  that  your 

life  of  Shakespeare  and  of  Shakespeare's  intimate  associates. 
When  will  this  sort  of  thiug  end?  When  shall  we  have  done  with 
the  irrelevant  and  disgusting  story  of  Mary  Fitton  ?  Must  we  have 
for  the  protection  of  our  homes  an  index  expurgatorius  for  works 
on  Shakespeare?  Does  intellectual  blindness  to  the  meaning  of 
the  greatest  and  best  dramas  in  the  world's  literature  naturally 
lead  one  into  moral  cesspools  ? 

Dr.  Creighton  tells  us  that  in  'The  Tempest'  Francis  Bacon  is 
personally  held  up  by  the  dramatist  to  universal  contempt,  not 
only  as  a  man  of  weak  memory  and,  therefore,  of  easy  conscience, 
but  one  al.so  destined  to  oblivion  at  death  ! 

Weak  memory! 

Easy  Conscience ! ! 

Oblivion  at  death ! ! ! 

1  Prof.  Skeat's  muse  is  ill-informed.  Every  statement  made  by 
Bacon  in  his  famous  Essay  of  Love  is  repeated,  almost  word  for 
word,  in  the  plays  of  Shake-speare  ;  while  no  more  sincere  and  lofty 
panegyric  of  this  passion  than  his  speech  in  Gray's  Inn,  recently 
discovered,  was  ever  uttered  by  man.  Hereafter,  this  slander  oa 
Bacon  will  not  be  deemed  otherwise  than  vile! 


OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON  73 

Shakespearean  commentator  and  biographer  should  use  such 
very  objectionable  language  when  speaking  of  Baconians. 
This  is  ignorance,  of  course.  Take  Dr.  Brandes,  for  example, 
whose  recent  work  on  Shakespeare  is  a  monument  of  patient 
learning,  though  his  fad  is  absurd.  He  calls  Baconians  '  less 
than  half  educated,'  '  raw  Americans  and  fanatical  women,' 
and  so  on.  A  man  who  indulges  in  violent  language  like 
this  is  not  to  be  trusted,  and  it  is  not  surprising  therefore 
to  find  it  coupled  with  the  following  astounding  statement : 
'  What  most  amazes  a  critical  reader  of  the  Baconian  imperti- 
nences is  the  fact  that  all  the  different  arguments  for  the  im- 
possibility of  attributing  these  plays  to  Shakspere  are  founded 
upon  the  universality  of  knowledge  and  insight  displayed 
in  them,  which  must  have  been  unattainable,  it  is  urged,  to 
a  man  of  Shakspere's  imperfect  scholastic  training.'  Now 
this  is  simply  untrue ;  and  if  Dr.  Brandes  were  in  this  one 
department  of  the  subject  a  critical  reader  in  any  real  sense 
he  would  know  it  to  be  untrue.  The  arguments  against  the 
William  Shakspere  authorship  are  not  all  founded  on  his 
'  imperfect  scholastic  training ;' —  there  are  others,  as  I  have 
detailed.  But  it  is  evident  from  Dr.  Brandes's  words  that  he 
has  not  read  the  literature  of  the  subject, —  notably,  he  is 
ignorant  of  the  book  by  Mr.  Edwin  Reed,  '  Bacon  vs.  Shak- 
spere,' which  sums  up  nearly  all  that  has  been  written  on 
the  other  side.  I  say  again, —  disbelieve  the  Baconian  theory 
(I  do  not  believe  it  myself)  — but  do  not  commit  the  worse 
than  absurdity  of  writing  down  an  ass  every  one  who  does 
believe  it.  The  improbability  of  William  Shakspere  having 
thought  and  set  down  the  greatest  imaginings  the  world  has 
known  is  so  enormous  that  one  may  be  forgiven  for  accepting 
another  improbability  instead."  —  (1901). 


The  matter  at  issue  in  this  conflict  of  opinion  is  at  bottom 
the  validity  and  power  of  tradition.  This  accounts  for 
what  is  seemingly  unaccountable,  the  heat  of  the  contro- 
versy as  conducted  for  the  defence.    To  these  disputants, 


74  OPINIONS,  PRO  AND  CON. 

it  is  but  just  to  say,  the  Shaksperean  myth  has  some- 
thing of  the  sacredness  of  divinity  ;  and  divinity  itself  is 
largely  a  matter  of  tradition.  Indeed,  they  may  be 
reviving  Tertullian's  famous  maxim,  Credo,  quia  ab- 
aurdum,  paraphrased  thus  :  Shakspere,  an  ignorant  yokel, 
wrote  the  learned  dramas ;  this  I  believe,  because  it  is 
repugnant  to  human  reason.  He  died  and  was  buried 
seventeen  feet  deep  in  the  ground  under  the  church  at 
Stratford  in  1616,  and  yet  made  large  additions  to  those 
dramas  after  that  date  and  burial :  this  is  certain,  for  it  is 
impossible. 


INDEX. 


INDEX. 


Abbott,  Edwin  A.,  13,  44. 

Academy  and  Literature,  68. 

Adee,  Alvey  A.,  49. 

Aldrich,  Thomas  Bailey,  49. 

Allibone,  S.  A.,  42. 

Ames,  Percy  W.,  24. 

Anders,  H.  K.  D.,  70. 

Anonymous,  22,  59. 

Apollinaire,  Guillaume,  36. 

Aristotle,  21, 

Arnold,  Matthew,  23. 

Asquith,  H.  H.,  60- 

Astor,  William  Waldorph,  35. 

Athenaeum,  The,  39. 

Beaumont,  Francis,  3. 

Bacon,  Anthony,  21. 

Bacon,  Delia,  5,  6,  7,  9,  20,  39, 
40,  42,  44. 

Bacon,  Lady  Anne,  21. 

Bacon,  Leonard,  38. 

Bacon,  Theodore,  6. 

Baldwin,  Dwight,  46. 

Barr,  Samuel  F.,  26. 

Bengough,  Samuel  Edmund,  15. 

Bingham,  John  A.,  22. 

Birch,  Thomas,  4. 

Birmingham  Daily  Gazette,  23. 

Bismarck,  Prince,  18. 

Blackstone,  Sir  William,  12. 

Blackwood's  Edinburgh  Maga- 
zine, 38. 

Blatchford,  Samuel,  50. 

Bodley,  Sir  Thomas,  20. 

Bompas,  George  C,  31. 

Borman,  Edwin,  20. 

Brandes,  George,  57,  73. 

Bright,  John,  15. 

Brink,  Bernard  Ten,  21. 

Brooks,  Phillips,  49. 

Brougham,  Henry,  Lord,  38. 

Bryce,  James,  51. 

Burns,  Robert,  63. 

Butler,  Benjamin  F.,  16. 

Byron,  Lord,  1. 

Campbell,  Chief  Justice,  53. 

Cantor,  Georg,  21. 


Carlyle,  Thomas,  6,  38. 

Castle,  Edward  James,  22. 

Chamberlain,  Joseph,  50. 

Chambeis'  Edinburgh  Journal, 
5. 

Chettle,  Henry,  22. 

Churchman,  The,  68. 

Clarke,  James  Freeman,  43. 

Coleridge,  Samuel  Taylor,  1,  13, 
38. 

Collier,  John  Payne,  2,  23. 

Collins,  J.  Churlon,  69. 

Condell,  Henry,  55. 

Conway,  M.  D.,  3. 

Corson,  Hiram,  42. 

Coverdale,  Thomas,  30. 

Craven,  Augustus,  7. 

Creighton,  C,  64,  71,  72. 

Crocker,  J.  W.,  38. 

Cruise,  Sir  Francis,  27,  70. 

Dana,  Charles  L.,  61. 

Davidson,  Thomas,  23. 

Davies,  Sir  John,  21,  42. 

D'Eckstadt,  Vitzthum,  14. 

Desbats,  Journal  des,  33. 

Dickens,  Charles,  11. 

Disraeli,  Benjamin,  1. 

Dixon,  Theron,  S.  E.,  20,  53. 

Dixon,  W.  Hepworth,  11. 

Dodge,  Abigail,  17. 

Dolbear,  A.  E.,  19. 

Dyce,  Alexander,  23. 

Edinburgh  Journal,  Chambers', 
5. 

Edinburgh  Magazine,  Black- 
wood's, 38. 

Edwards,  Annie  L.,  28. 

Eliot,  George,  68. 

Elizabeth,  Queen,  66. 

Ellsmere,  Lord,  39. 

Elze,  Friedrich  Karl,  46. 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  1,  3. 

Engel,  Eduard,  44. 

Essex,  Earl  of,  21. 

Evans,  Mary  Ann,  68. 

Fischer,  Kuuo,  12. 


78 


INDEX. 


Fiske,  John,  56,  57. 

Ingleby,  Holcombe,  55. 

Fitton,  Mary,  72, 

Irving,  Sir  Henry,  5-3,  61. 

Fletcher,  John,  3 

'  Is  It  Shakespeare?',  Author  of, 

Frothinghani,  O.  B.,  19. 

33. 

Freidenberger,  Herr,  62. 

James  First,  47. 

Furness,  H.  H.,  9,  40. 

James,  George,  21. 

Furness,  W.  H.,  9. 

Johnson,  Francis  Howe,  33. 

Gazette,  Birmingham  Daily, 

23, 

Jonson,  Ben,  1,  16,  55,  56. 

24. 

Journal,  A  London,  55. 

Gazette,  Pall  Mall,  25. 

'  Journal  des  Debats  ',  33. 

George,  Henry,  54. 

Journalist,  A.,  31. 

Gerviuus,  George  Gottfrie 

d,4 

,5. 

Keats,  John,  38. 

Gfrorer,  August  Friedrich 

,3. 

Keifer,  J.  Warren,  34. 

Gilinan,  Daniel  C.,  49. 

Keller,  Helen,  58. 

Gladstone,  William  E.,  15 

,50 

Kittredge,  George  L.,  55. 

Godwin,  Park,  .59. 

Knight,  Charles,  16,  23. 

Goethe,  Johann  Wolfgang  von, 

Knott,  J.  Proctor,  47,  48. 

49,  56. 

Labouchere,  Henry,  17. 

Gosse,  Edmund,  62,  71. 

Lamartine,  Alphonse  de,  40. 

Grant,  Rt.  Hon.  Sir  Mountstuart, 

Lamb,  Charles.  38,  49. 

8. 

Lang,  Andrew,  50. 

Greene,  Eobert,  22. 

Lecky,  W.  E.  H..  52. 

Grosart,  A.  B.,  21. 

Lee,  Sidney,  60,  64,  65. 

Grotius,  Hugo,  12. 

Lessing,  Gotthold  Ephraim,  5. 

Hallam,  Henrr,  2,  4,  57. 

Lewis,  Charlton  T.,  46. 

Halliwell-Phillipps,  J.  O., 

11, 

23. 

Libby,  Charles  F.,  36. 

Hamilton,  Gail,  17. 

Livermore,  Mary  A.,  19. 

Harper's  New    Monthly 

Maga- 

Lome,  Marquess  of,  54. 

zine,  41. 

Lowell,  James  Russell,  10. 

Harris,  W.  T.,  15. 

Lytton,  E.  Bulwer,  56. 

Hart,  Joseph  C.,  3. 

Macaulay,  Thomas  B.,  56,  57. 

Haweis,  W.  R..  16. 

Madden,  D.  H.,  55,  56. 

Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  6, 

13. 

Madras  Mail,  72. 

Hawthorne,  Sophia,  7. 

Maiste,  M.  le,  4. 

Hazlitt,  William,  54. 

Malloch,  W.  H.,27. 

Hazlitt,  W.  Carew,  58. 

Malone,  Edmund,  23. 

Head,  Franklin  H.,  66. 

Manchester  Guardian,  The,  58. 

Healey,  Father,  70. 

Manchester  Literary  Club,  The, 

Heminge,  John,  55. 

70. 

Henn,  Judge,  27,  70. 

Manchester,  L.  C,  22. 

Henry  Irving  Shakespeare,  The, 

Marston,  R.  B.,  31. 

47. 

Martin,  Sir  Theodore,  46. 

Hill,  Lysander,  17. 

Massey,  Gerald,  15,  47. 

Hippocrates,  63. 

Masson,  David,  6,  47. 

Holmes,  Nathaniel,  8,  9, 

40, 

42, 

Matthew,  Sir  Toby,  14,  22. 

67,  68. 

McKenna,  Sir  Joseph  N.,  16. 

Holmes,   Oliver  Wendell, 

3. 

10, 

Medwin,  Thomas,  1. 

11,  12. 

Melbourne,  Lord,  38. 

Homer,  10,  13,  52, 

Milnes,  Richai'd  Monckton,  8. 

Houghton,  Lord,  8. 

Milton,  John,  13,  56,  62. 

Hughes,  Thomas,  50. 

Molloy,  Monseigneur,  70. 

Hunter,  Joseph,  2. 

Morgan,  Appleton,  8.  36,  53. 

Ingersol,  Robert  G.,  51. 

Moore,  George,  35,  70. 

Ingleby,  Clement  M.,  46. 

Morris,  Sir  Lewis,  14. 

INDEX. 


79 


Muller,  Mylius,  Karl,  3. 
Murray,  J.  A.  H.,  68. 
Nation,  The  New  York,  68. 
Newman,  Francis  W.,  13. 
Newman,  John  Henry  Cardinal, 

10. 
News,  The  Daily,  31. 
News,  The  London  Illustrated, 

63. 
North  American  Review,  39. 
North,  Christopher,  39. 
O'Connor,  William  D.,  12,  13. 
,01iphant,  Margaret,  47. 
Open  Court,  The,  34. 
Packet,  The  Irish,  70. 
Pall  Mall  Gazette,  25. 
Palmerston,  Lord,  7,  10. 
Parkman,  Francis,  16. 
Peel,  Sir  Robert,  38. 
Penzance.  Lord,  82. 
People,  The  Daily,  65. 
Periodical,  A  London,  64. 
Phelps,  Edward  J.,  52,  53. 
Post,  The  Morning,  50. 
Pott,  Mrs.  Henry,  12. 
Prewen,  Thomas,  9. 
Putnam,  Arthur  A.,  34. 
Quarterly  Review,  The,  57. 
Quincy,  Josiah  P. ,  32. 
Raleigh,  Sir  Walter,  3, 12,  13,  22. 
Raynal,  Louis  de,  14. 
Remusat,  M.  de,  14. 
Romanes,  George  J.,  61. 
Rowlands,  John,  70,  71. 
Ruggles,  Henry  J.,  10. 
Russell,  Lord  John,  38. 
Saintsbury,  George,  53. 
Saturday  Review,  The,  54,  68. 
Schlegel,  A.  W.  von,  1,  31. 
Scott,  Sir  Walter,  38. 
Scribner's  Monthly  Magazine, 42. 
Shelley,  Percy  Bisshe,  38,  56. 
Sherman,  Gen.  W.  T.,  48. 
Sinnet,  A.  P.,  28. 
Skeat,  Walter  W.,  72. 
Smith,  Goldwin,  52. 
Smith,  William  Henry,  7,  9,  39, 

40. 
Smithson,  E.  W.,  25. 
Snead,  John  L.  T.,  17. 


Spear,  Ellis,  51. 

Spedding,  James,  6,  10,  40,  41, 

42,56. 
Spofford,  Harriet  Prescott,  16. 
Stapfer,  Paul,  44. 
Stedman,  Edmund  C,  54,  82. 
Steeven.s,  George,  23. 
Stephen,  Leslie,  47. 
Stewart,  Helen  Hinton,  29. 
Stopes,  Charlotte  C,  47. 
Strater,  Theodore,  23. 
Stronach,  George,  60,  64,  68,  69. 
Sutton,  William  A.,  27,  70. 
Swing,  David,  15. 
Taine,  Hippolyte  A.,  56. 
Talbot,  George  F.,  37. 
Tell,  William,  62. 
Temple,  Edward  L.,  66. 
Tennyson,  Alfred,  39,  53,  47. 
Tertulliau,  74. 
Theobald,  Lewis,  64. 
Theobald,  Robert  M.,  11,  16,  17, 

69. 
Theobald,  William,  19. 
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Wordsworth,  Bishop,  40. 
Wordsworth,  William,  38. 
World,  The  Literary,  62. 


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